The Reception of Ernest Dichter and the Resistance to Motivation Research in Francophone Europe

Abstract

As noted in a recent paper bearing upon the history of Motivation Research in Europe, the impact of Dichter’s theories and practice in French-speaking Europe remains understudied (Schwarzkopf 2005: 40–9). The most substantial research on the topic so far has been carried out by Marc Meuleau in his doctoral dissertation on the history of marketing in France, and I heavily rely upon his work, especially in the first part of this chapter (Meuleau 1992). The main primary sources used in this chapter are contemporary accounts, notably the writings of the French advertising man Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet, founder of the agency Publicis in 1926, today the world’s fourth largest communications group, and of the writer Georges Perec, whose novel Les choses possibly the second most important among his works after La vie mode d’emploi tells the story of two French motivation researchers in the 1960s. In addition, I selectively review the content of 87 research reports for French firms and French-speaking accounts filed at the Ernest Dichter Archive in Vienna. My point here is not to deliver a complete study of the topic, but rather to draw a first sketch and identify the main features of a topic that deserves further enquiry.