By Peter Hutton

Bryan Bates was born in March 1931. Following school at Wallington Grammar School, he attended the London School of Economics (LSE).

I first met Bryan when he joined Mori as a director in 1984. I was a young 31-year-old associate director and he came from a background of very senior appointments in market research businesses and associations in the UK and Europe.

Bryan had an extraordinarily successful career in the research industry before and after his time at Mori.

After getting a BSc and MSc at LSE, he did national service in the RAF then joined the British Market Research Bureau – BMRB – in 1956 and was appointed a director 10 years later. 

During this time, he got increasingly involved in international research. He was appointed director of a subsidiary of BMRB specialising in international research in 1968 then became president of a subsidiary he set up in Milan, then set up a BMRB subsidiary in Spain 1970, and another subsidiary in Bombay in 1971.

In 1976 he became managing director of BMRB and when it merged with MBL and Mass Observation to form MLB International, he was appointed joint chief executive.

Bryan joining Mori as director responsible for international research suited both sides, Bryan because I think he had felt it was time he moved on from BMRB and Mori because the senior team at Mori was really quite young and Bryan’s experience of running various businesses, and of international research,  which was not a strength of Mori at the time, certainly enhanced the business as a whole.

A couple of years after he joined Mori, we underwent a major restructuring including the setting up of three groups of researchers. I was fortunate enough to be paired off with Bryan as my group head with me as his deputy. I say fortunate because I don’t think any other pairing would have worked nearly as well. Bryan focused on international research and was also very involved in Esomar, while I dabbled an eclectic range of other research areas including opinion polls, utilities, privatisations and transport. It worked very well, since he left me to get on with what I most enjoyed doing and similarly I had no reason to involve myself in his areas of interest. They were happy times.

I remember him saying, perhaps when he retired, that never once had we ever fallen out over anything.  When needed, he was always very supportive. In 1982, I embarked on writing a book entitled Survey Research for Managers. In part it was a kind of ‘What the use is it anyway?’ book which focused on how to use surveys in management decision-making, rather than how to do market research. The original idea was that I would write a couple of chapters and the other Mori directors would write chapters in their areas of specialisation. In the end, perhaps inevitably,  I ended up writing all the chapters, except the one on international research which Bryan submitted in good time and with a contribution that undoubtedly enhanced the authoritativeness of the work, in an area where I had virtually zero experience.

By the time Bryan joined Mori, he had already been involved in Esomar for quite a few years, including as a council member, since 1978.  He was clearly very successful there since in 1991 he was appointed director general and in 1993 he founded and was appointed the first director general of the European Federation of Associations of Market Research Organisations (Efamro), which I believe he'd recommend should be set up after leading an inquiry into the future of market research in Europe. It seems that, having defined the need and rationale for such an organisation, he was probably the obvious person to take on the role. He led the organisation for 10 years until his retirement in 2004.

Perhaps one of the reasons Bryan was so successful in all his overlapping careers, was because he was such a kind person who was generous with this time.  

He co-founded Market Research Benevolent Association in the UK in 1978 and was a trustee until he retired in 2004. He also held very senior roles in the UK Market Research Society over many years, including being elected as chairman in 1975, having served on its council and been chairman of its meetings committee, responsible for a very successful conference in 1973. He did much to enhance the quality and standards of market research in Britain and beyond through his European connections.  He was also a very active member of the Archive of Market and Social Research (AMSR), serving as chairman of the contents committee.

I will remember him as a kind, good humoured and modest man, who, as his various industry appointments show, was someone who quietly got on with organising things that made a significant and lasting impact on the market research industry in the UK, in Europe and many other parts of the world.

May he rest in peace and his accomplishments be remembered in the industry he served so well.

Peter Hutton was previously deputy managing director of Mori then founder and managing director of BrandEnergy Research Limited

This obituary has been written by Peter Hutton, with some material provided by Bryan’s family and by AMSR.