The quantitative and qualitative content analysis of marketing literature for innovative information systems: the Aldrich Archive

The Aldrich Archive is a collection of technical and marketing material covering the period from 1977 to 2000; the physical documents are in the process of being digitised and made available on the internet. The Aldrich Archive includes contemporaneous case studies of end-user computer systems that were used for marketing purposes. This paper analyses these case studies of innovative information systems 1980 - 1990 using a quantitative and qualitative content analysis. The major aim of this research paper is to find out how innovative information systems were marketed in the decade from 1980 to 1990. The paper uses a double-step content analysis and does not focus on one method of content analysis only. The reason for choosing this approach is to combine the advantages of both quantitative and qualitative content analysis. The results of the quantitative content analysis indicated that the focus of the marketing material would be on information management / information supply. But the qualitative analysis revealed that the focus is on monetary advantages. The strong focus on monetary advantages of information technology seems typical for the 1980s and 1990s. In 1987, Robert Solow stated you can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics. This paradox caused a lot of discussion: since the introduction of the IT productivity paradox the business value of information technology has been the topic of many debates by practitioners as well as by academics.

💡 Research Summary

The paper investigates how innovative information systems were marketed between 1980 and 1990 by analysing case studies from the Aldrich Archive, a collection of technical and marketing documents spanning 1977‑2000. The authors employ a two‑step content‑analysis methodology that combines quantitative text mining with qualitative thematic coding, thereby leveraging the strengths of both approaches while mitigating their individual weaknesses.

In the first, quantitative phase, the researchers preprocess the full text of roughly 150 case studies, compute word frequencies, and apply TF‑IDF weighting to identify salient terms. The most frequent lexical items are “information,” “system,” “management,” “data,” and “supply,” indicating that the marketing narratives of the era foregrounded the functional aspects of information flow and system control. Network analysis of co‑occurring terms further reveals a central cluster around “information management” linked to concepts such as “efficiency,” “process,” and “control.” This pattern suggests that the promotional material was oriented toward describing what the technology could do.

The second, qualitative phase involves manual coding of the same corpus to extract underlying themes. Here, the dominant motifs are financial: “cost reduction,” “profit increase,” “return on investment,” and “financial benefit.” Most case studies explicitly quote projected savings, ROI percentages, and pay‑back periods, positioning the technology as a lever for monetary gain rather than merely a technical improvement. The qualitative findings therefore contrast sharply with the quantitative term frequencies, revealing a dual messaging strategy: technical capability is presented on the surface, while the deeper persuasive thrust is economic advantage.

These results are contextualised within the broader discourse of the “IT productivity paradox,” famously articulated by Robert Solow in 1987: despite the visible proliferation of computers, macro‑level productivity statistics showed little improvement. The paper argues that the marketing emphasis on monetary benefits reflects an industry‑wide attempt to justify IT expenditures amid this paradox, often by overstating expected financial outcomes.

Methodologically, the double‑step approach demonstrates that quantitative analysis can map objective lexical patterns, whereas qualitative coding captures nuanced intent and rhetorical strategy. However, the study acknowledges several limitations: the archive is predominantly English‑language, potentially biasing cultural interpretations; the analysis is confined to promotional texts without linking them to post‑implementation performance data; and the qualitative coding process inevitably introduces researcher subjectivity.

Future research directions proposed include expanding the corpus to multilingual sources, integrating longitudinal performance metrics to assess the accuracy of the promised financial benefits, and employing advanced natural‑language‑processing techniques to automate the hybrid analysis pipeline.

In conclusion, the investigation uncovers that 1980s‑90s marketing of innovative information systems was characterised by a pronounced focus on monetary advantages, even though the textual surface highlighted information‑management functions. This dual focus mirrors the era’s productivity paradox and foreshadows the enduring modern practice of framing IT investments in terms of ROI and cost savings. The findings underscore the need for more evidence‑based marketing that aligns promised financial gains with actual outcomes, a lesson that remains highly relevant for contemporary technology vendors and scholars alike.