Pioneers in Advertising and Magazine Research
The founding of Readex Research takes us back to 1945. Those were the days when an advertising agency executive by the name of Bob Pendergast set out to answer a question his clients were asking him, "What kind of advertising works best?" Bob had several clients running ads in magazines and newspapers. To get a sense for which ads were, indeed, doing the best job at developing what he called "reader interest," he created a survey system using the mail survey.
Readers were sent a package that included a duplicate copy of the magazine or newspaper, a small red marking pencil, instruction letter, and reply envelope. They were asked to look at each and every item in the publication and draw a line through everything they "found of interest." When done with the survey, the publication would be returned for processing. Pendergast perfected his system over a two-year period and opened Readex in October of 1947.
Early clientele included agricultural publications, some newspapers, and consumer magazines. It wasn't until the late 1950's that Readex started to work with more traditional business-to-business publications. Revenues were growing and so was the number of employees. From the company's inception in 1947, all operations were in the Pendergast's home in Mahtomedi, Minnesota, a suburb of St. Paul. Then in 1961 the company moved to a new location at 140 Quail Street in Mahtomedi. Unfortunately, Bob died not long after the move but his wife, Lenore, continued to run the business.
New ad recall research methods
In 1967 the company launched a new product developed by Richard Rogers, Sr., a long time executive with Readex. It was called the Red Sticker study and added recall-based measures to the Reader Interest score. Over the next few years, several other ad study programs were added to give customers a broader array of choices.
Changes, expansion and new offerings
In 1975 Mrs. Pendergast sold the firm to John Butterfield who was past President of Donaldson's Department store. He initiated a number of major changes, starting with upgrading report graphics, redesigning the logo that originated in the 1940's, and adding computerized systems to process survey returns. A few years later he began adding staff, hiring Richard Rogers, Jr. in 1980 as a project director, now our Research Director, and Jack Semler in 1982 as the sales manager.
During the mid-1980's the business began to grow rapidly as more clients were brought in and more services were offered. We began offering custom research services as part of our portfolio (1984), kicking-off with reader profile studies. From there we added many other types of distinctive, custom surveys, including our expansion into custom studies for association executives with member satisfaction studies and wage and benefit studies.
In 1991, Mr. Semler purchased the business and the growth continued. In 1995 we moved from our home in Mahtomedi of 34 years to a brand new facility in Stillwater, Minnesota. Shortly thereafter Readex started to get the feeling that this new thing called the Internet might be big, so we began working on developing online study capabilities. Today, online projects represent a significant portion of our annual project count.
A new era in corporate research
Rolling into the new millennium, Readex continued to focus on conducting surveys by mail and online. Complete, in-house capabilities were developed, and remain in place, to conduct either method from start to finish. We also expanded our offerings by introducing our Corporate Research group and now work for a sizeable list of corporate clients, consulting firms, and other research companies who need help with their survey process. Today Readex conducts 700+ projects per year, working for customers in the U.S., Canada, and Europe.