RadCasts

US car makers had it good. As quickly as they could manufacture cars, people bought them. By 1914, that was changing. In higher price brackets, especially, purchasers and dealerships were becoming choosier. One commentator warned that the retailers could no longer sell what their own judgement dictated – they must sell what the consumer wanted. That commentator was Charles Coolidge Parlin, widely recognised as the man who invented the very idea of market research. The invention of market research marks an early step in a broader shift from a “producer-led” to “consumer-led” approach to business – from making something then trying to persuade people to buy it, to trying to find out what people might buy and then making it. One century later, the market research profession is huge: in the United States alone, it employs around half a million people. Producer: Ben Crighton Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon (Image: Market research, Credit: Bildagentur Zoonar GmbH/Shutterstock)

If you think Kanye West was the first to change the American fashion game, meet one of the flyest Black fashion squads in history.

RELATED LINKS

Check out Robin Givhan’s book, “The Battle of Versailles: The Night American Fashion Stumbled into the Spotlight and Made History.”

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A couple of decades after Leo Baekeland invented the first fully synthetic plastic – Bakelite – plastics were pouring out of labs around the world. There was polystyrene, often used for packaging; nylon, popularised by stockings; polyethylene, the stuff of plastic bags. As the Second World War stretched natural resources, production of plastics ramped up to fill the gap. And when the war ended, exciting new products like Tupperware hit the consumer market. These days, plastics are everywhere. We make so much plastic, it takes about eight percent of oil production – half for raw material, half for energy. And despite its image problem, and growing evidence of environmental problems, plastic production is set to double in the next 20 years. Producer: Ben Crighton Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon (Image: Plastic bottle tops, Credit: Taweesak Thiprod/Shutterstock)

We’re off this week, but we wanted to share a little of the behind the scenes magic of our show. There’s a lot that goes into making an episode of The Nod…and there’s a lot that doesn’t go in. Enjoy these outtakes and come back next week for an all new episode!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why should we get into a stranger’s car – or buy a stranger’s laser pointer? In 1997, eBay introduced a feature that helped solve the problem: Seller Feedback. Jim Griffith was eBay’s first customer service representative; at the time, he says “no-one had ever seen anything like [it]”. The idea of both parties rating each other after a transaction has now become ubiquitous. You buy something online – you rate the seller, the seller rates you. Or you use a ride-sharing service, like Uber – you rate the driver, the driver rates you. And a few positive reviews set our mind at ease about a stranger. Jim Griffith is not sure eBay would have grown without it. Online matching platforms would still exist, of course – but perhaps they’d be more like hitch-hiking today: a niche pursuit for the unusually adventurous, not a mainstream activity that’s transforming whole sectors of the economy. Producer: Ben Crighton Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon (Image: Hand touching stars, Credit: Cherezoff/Shutterstock)