Mackay Becomes Mr Sample

UK-based fieldwork specialist John Mackay has launched his own international B2B and consumer sampling agency, Mr Sample.

Mackay commenced his MR career 18 years ago, working in the telephone unit of drinks market specialist PAS (now part of TNS), where he latterly held supervisory and management positions.

Since 2003, he has served in a business development role at sampling solutions firm Sample Answers, and five years before this, he set up a CATI telephone unit for German-owned icon, where he worked until the company was sold to WPP in 2002.

Prior to this, he and colleague Dave Beal co-founded the Telephone Interviewing Company, which provided fieldwork, face-to-face and telephone interviewing services to a number of agencies including RAS, Romtec (now Harris Interactive), Interviewing Services, Resource and Dataquest. During this time, he also handled the fieldwork for Research International's Retail Price Index.

In addition to offering sample to the MR industry, Mackay's new firm represents Hamburg-based CATI specialist 'at random international' in the UK, and offers telecoms services through Protel.

Commenting on the launch, Mackay said: 'Despite the downturn in the economy, the industry is fairly buoyant right now. This is a great time to work with agencies globally to meet their sampling needs.'

He is currently Chairman of AIMRI (the Alliance of International Market Research Institutes) and also runs market research industry networking group the Research Club.

Mackay can be contacted at john.mackay@mr-sample.co.uk and details about the Research Club are online at www.theresearchclub.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.