CRAM International founder Peter Cooper dies aged 73

Cooper launched CRAM in 1969 and closed the company shortly before his death. The former CRAM team – including MD Simon Patterson and operations director Debbie Whittick – have gone on to set up QRi Consulting.

Here, Cooper’s former business partner John Pawle pays tribute to a man he calls “one of the true founders of the modern global qualitative research movement”.

“Peter Cooper’s vision was to understand and communicate consumer psychology notably through insightful psycho-social analyses of consumers. Peter established Cooper Research and Marketing (later CRAM International) in 1969 to achieve these goals. Peter and his team have undertaken many thousands of qualitative projects around the world, exploring cultures and lifestyles, challenging conventions, and advocating the virtues of carefully constructed qualitative research.

Peter was a chartered psychologist, chartered scientist, fellow of the UK Market Research Society (MRS), fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, and had studied and taught experimental, social and humanistic psychology at the Universities of Manchester, Paris, Oslo and London before entering the market research industry.

CRAM International was, for the best part of 40 years, a world leading research agency specialising in in-depth market studies with a top-level global team. Peter had 40 years of experience of researching consumers at all life stages across all product fields for a wide variety of clients. Peter was responsible for developing many interviewing and projective practices now widely used in ‘new marketing’ and modern marketing research. This includes the use of extended groups for which he coined the phrase Extended Creativity Group (ECG). He has written many papers and was active right up to his death in Esomar and MRS, highlighting key issues in contemporary marketing, market research and communications.

In later decades he was also a pioneer of the quantification of qualitative research via the company QiQ International. This type of research became known as ‘QualiQuant’.

Peter’s other abiding passions were good food, cinema, art, exploring new ideas, horseback riding and Italy. He had tremendous energy and continued working right up to the moment of his death. He had a very warm and engaging personality. Many people in the market research industry will have been touched by him at some stage in their careers.”

He has written over 100 articles on consumer psychology, and regularly contributed to the media. Indeed at the time of his death he was on the way to a TV interview. He pioneered methods for opening up the secrets of consumer change, contributed to the success of many global marketing campaigns and championed the new consumer democracy.”