Alexander Raulfs is a leading pioneer in online market research from Germany. His profession is based on practical experience from hundreds of market research studies as well as scientific expertise from years of teaching at universities, including as a Visiting Professor at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) in 2002. Upon his graduation in communication sciences at the Freie Universität Berlin, he founded ComCult Research GmbH in Berlin in 1997 and took over the directorship. Since 2012, he is Market Research Consultant for international clients in market and opinion research worldwide. In 2024, Alexander Raulfs has now launched the brand “The Survey Scientists”, which is intended to ensure high-quality data and survey results for more valid online research in the future.
In 1997, I recognized the enormous potential of the Internet for market research and I founded one of the first research institutes in Germany, specializing in online market research.
After graduating from high school, Alexander Raulfs studied communication sciences in the 80/90s, where he acquired academic and pedagogical skills as a tutor to Professor Dr. Erbring at the Department of Empirical Communication Sciences at the Freie Universität Berlin, as well as taking on his first teaching activities. After graduating from university, his outstanding professional qualifications as an emprical communications researcher resulted, among other functions, in activities as a project manager, and finally, in 1997, in the founding of ComCult Research GmbH in Berlin, one of the first research institutes in Germany specializing in online market research. Already at the end of the 1990s, he recognized the enormous potential of the Internet for market and opinion research and developed one of the first online panels in Germany in cooperation with Emnid (later TNS Infratest, Kantar Emnid) in 1999. This remarkable debut with a decisive influence was followed by several innovations for German market research via the Internet, including the first online omnibus survey in Germany, the advanced development of the “eCommerce Facts” studies on behalf of Deutsche Post AG, his collaboration in the international research project “The computer as a medium of media integration” by means of a Delphi survey conducted over the Internet, in the year of 1999.
The innovation in market research generated a high level of attention, which was followed by numerous television appearances by Alexander Raulfs, as well as the publication of several articles about the pioneer of online market research, i.a. a portrait in the Berliner Morgenpost. In the summer semester of 2002, Alexander Raulfs was assigned by Professor Dr. Rucktäschel to the University of the Arts in Berlin as a Visiting Professor for Social and Business Communication at the UdK. For years thereafter, he continued to work as a docent at the UdK in Berlin, giving seminars on Survey Questionnaire Construction, a.o. In 2012, Alexander Raulfs published the first edition of his ebook “Questionnaire Construction”, which deals in detail with the scientific and practice-oriented design of questionnaires for surveys. A second, updated and expanded edition is currently in progress and will be published at the beginning of 2025.
After more than 27 years, my clients continue to benefit from my professionalism in empirical research at an international level.
In the first years after the foundation of ComCult Research GmbH, the focus rested on national companies such as Deutsche Post AG and many others (e.g. T-Mobile, Burda Verlag, Deutsche Bank), while since the mid-2000s the majority of clients have been international, including Microsoft US Headquarters in Redmond, in cooperation with MRTinsights for a decade since 2004. The challenging project requirements repeatedly achieved client-oriented results based on Alexander Raulf’s unconventional ideas and customized solutions; unthinkable without access to his seemingly inexhaustible, scientific repertoire of methods and analysis techniques. Over the past decade, Alexander Raulfs has continued to set new standards, such as the comparability features of survey providers on the internet for recruitment for online panels, which are a requirement for advertisers by Google Adwords. Meanwhile, he also designed a so-called Rewards App, for example, for participation in mobile and online surveys for younger users worldwide. He is one of the exceptional personalities in market research because he possesses not only purely technical skills, but also the “craftsmanship”, which means the spirit for constant, creative, interdisciplinary activity in his profession. Alexander Raulfs lives together with his wife in Barcelona, Spain.
