 The purpose was to offer Unilever's long-standing market research knowhow as a service to other companies, thus converting two internal cost centres to a profitable daughter company.In 1966, Eileen Cole, who had worked in Unilever since 1948 and had been an early group leader within Unilever Market Research Department, became the managing director of RBL and began to grow its external business.In 1973, Unilever created the European Market Research Group (EMRG), an umbrella organisation where RBL and its six overseas subsidiaries (among them SUMA in Belgium, CER in Italy and IFH in Sweden), as well as Unilever's larger marketing research companies in West Germany (IVE), France (SECED) and the Netherlands (Socmar), began to coordinate their activities and offer external clients multinational research reports.