Insight into Jack Trytten
President, Insight Direction, Inc.

You Have to Know the Customer

One of the great insights to gain popular acceptance during the TQM era was that a company's only sustainable advantage was their intimate knowledge of the customer. In Jack's 30 years of marketing experience, he has seen the importance of intimate customer knowledge across a wide variety of clients and industries: Kraft, Ingersoll-Rand, Budget Rent a Car, Illinois Tool Works, Ocean Spray, Amoco and many others. This was true for all of them. Yet, too many managers try to develop market strategy, whether for new or existing products, with only sketchy customer knowledge. They are bound to fail.

Insight Direction Brings Unique Skills

Solid strategy must be based on an intimate understanding of the emotional drivers of the purchase. But most market research tries to provide rational answers through surveys and focus groups. These tools have their places. They can tell you how many and where. What they can't tell you is why.

"When I started Insight Direction, I wanted to bring our unique approach to understanding the market. Our process delves beyond the usual discussion of features and benefits to uncover the emotional drivers of the purchase decision."

Dramatic Growth from Current Products

As ad agencies bring in new accounts, they would rethink the approach. However, they would usually fail to fully understand the dynamics of the purchase decision. Jack brought an intimate understanding to the new accounts at McCann and BBDS, often with remarkable results. "When we based the restaging of brands based on the insights from our process, the usual result was growth at a rate of 3 to 4 times faster than in the past. Knowing why people make their decisions provides a much clearer direction for building a more powerful marketing effort."

Reducing the Risk Inherent with New Products

Many companies back away from the tremendous growth offered with new product development due to the high likelihood of failure. The largest cause of failure is from not understanding the true drivers of a purchase decision. Frustrated with available research techniques, Jack worked with psychologists and other clinicians to develop a research methodology that would clearly identify the likelihood of purchase along with the reasons why. "We have worked with a wide variety of products and services and our clients have achieved a remarkable level of success."