Before Paul Lazarsfeld became a major figure in 20th-century American sociology, he tried to make a living as a social researcher in Vienna. In 1931, he founded the Economic-Psychological Research Bureau, which linked statistical studies with in-depth interviews in order to reveal the „true motives“ for purchasing behaviors. This so-called motivation research came to be a key technique in post-war marketing. My talk will show examples of Lazarsfeld’s Viennese studies and mainly focus on a survey of Austrian radio listeners from 1932. By correlating radio programs with social class, this study broke the mass audience down into specific target groups for the very first time.