Four Decades of Insights and Innovation
The year was 1985.
Michael Jordan was about to win NBA’s Rookie of the Year. The very first version of Microsoft Windows was released. The President of the United States was Ronald Reagan. The average price for a gallon of gasoline was just $1.12.
And The Martec Group was just getting started.
Early that year, Bob Sullivan left the market research firm where he had worked for three years and moved to Chicago. He connected with a fraternity brother, Jim Durkin, and the two partners together (with two other initial employees) set up shop on the West side of Chicago above a shellfish wholesale business owned by the father of a college friend. The sights and smells of the Chicago meat and seafood wholesale district in those days were ever-present, but the offer of free office space fit their budget. Ironically the space is now occupied by one of the hottest restaurants in the hottest real estate development area in town. This was The Martec Group’s first official corporate headquarters.
Soon Martec would have its first client, an automotive parts manufacturer. Bob and Jim decided to establish their initial titles as Vice President, in order to give the impression that they were part of a larger organization. During an early presentation at the client’s offices, a member of their team looked at the freshly minted business cards, smiled, and quipped, “Well, it looks like everyone is a vice president!”
Before long, the fledgling company with scant resources would see its humble revenues double. By that time, in 1987, Martec had found another home: a four-story warehouse that Bob and Jim purchased (thanks to a combination of owner-financing and a small business loan) a few blocks down on Fulton Street.
Bootstraps and Business Partners
Those early years weren’t all sunshine and rainbows, of course. Founding Partner Jim Durkin recalls some humorous anecdotes common to early-stage startups.
“An early engagement required an out-of-town onsite meeting to present the results of our research, and we had to stay overnight because we couldn’t get a flight back until the next day. Not wanting to spend money we didn’t have on a hotel room we slept in our rental car in the parking lot of the airport before hopping on our flight the next morning. We probably saved 60 bucks, but back then, every little bit counted!”
Fast forward to 1990, and history was about to repeat itself.
Three market research professionals (who were at the same firm in Detroit that Sullivan had left five years prior) had their eyes on a similar prize, and negotiations began for them to join the growing Martec enterprise. After one was lured away by a client, Kevin McMahon and current Martec President Rick Claar formally merged with The Martec Group and opened an office in Southfield, Michigan. The merger doubled the company size overnight and soon other colleagues would follow, including current Partners Chuck Bean and Bob Funk and Partner Emeritus Sandy Monahan.
With revenues now into seven figures, and a strong team of market research professionals filled with ambition and curiosity, The Martec Group was on its way to more than four decades of growth, innovation, and the solid reputation it has earned 40 years since its founding.
Insights, Innovation and Invention
Today, with more than 60 employees and more than 7,000 successful projects completed, The Martec Group is recognized as an innovative firm that is big enough to take on significant challenges, while remaining small enough so that each project receives senior-leadership oversight and execution.
Along the way, the firm has expanded its footprint and established strategic partnerships across the globe. In addition to maintaining its presence in Chicago and Detroit, Martec opened an office in Frankfurt, Germany in 1997 with long-time collaborators Claus and Frank Botzem. Martec followed this by opening offices in Tokyo (1999) and Shanghai, China (2006).
By 1999, Martec had surpassed $10M in revenue and its client ranks included prominent Fortune 500 members such as Abbott Laboratories, Baxter International, Deere & Company, Dow Chemical, DuPont, General Electric, General Motors, Honeywell, Johnson & Johnson, Shell and USG.
Throughout its history, the firm has continued to emphasize a balance of both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, as well as a commitment to serving both B2B and B2C brands. In addition, in the early 2000s Martec discovered that the private equity community could benefit from its deep experience and ability to quickly assess and validate investment and acquisition opportunities. Martec has been growing its Commercial Due Diligence practice area ever since.
In the 40 years since its founding, the company has withstood the dot-com bubble burst, 9/11, the Great Recession, the demise of the telephone call-center model, a global pandemic, supply chain disruptions, and a couple of bouts of skyrocketing inflation—and now, the advent of AI and all of its promise and disruption at once. While many of its peers could not, The Martec Group has been fortunate to not only survive, but to thrive!
When Things Got Emotional
Perhaps Martec’s greatest innovation (among many that have come along in the company’s first four decades) was the development of its proprietary Emotion Intelligence suite of solutions.
Current Partner and CMO Chuck Bean recalls a fortunate meeting with Dr. Tom Snyder, a psychiatrist with a PhD in neuroscience, who had become fascinated with the human expression of experienced emotions.
“Apparently, he would do sessions with patients, commonly asking people how they felt. And they would try to verbalize their emotions in various ways. At some point he thought, I don’t think what these people are saying is how they truly feel; they are struggling to associate words with emotions.
“So he began to develop a language-based methodology of mapping words to emotions, eventually establishing ‘channels’ to help categorize, quantify, map and analyze the words people use to express their emotions.”
That early methodology would be adopted, refined, automated, and assigned numerical value by Martec’s team of researchers, enabling analysts to assign quantifiable metrics (numbers) to what are essentially qualifiable abstractions (emotions).
To this day, Martec remains a pioneer in the realm of Emotion Intelligence, going on to develop a set of research-friendly proprietary solutions that uncover the hidden sentiments, opinions, and associations related to brands, products and decisions.
Snyder sadly passed away in 2022, but his legacy lives on in the work that Martec continues to pursue in his name and in his vision.
Forty Years Hence
In 2025 and going forward, Martec promises to continue to innovate and evolve as it has in the 40 years prior. In recent years, the company has pursued strategic partnerships in the areas of Innovation Research and Strategy Planning. The team continues to explore the impact of artificial intelligence in market research with both caution and enthusiasm. Its work in Emotion Intelligence continues to evolve and get more powerful and applicable across both B2B and B2C sectors.
We have had hundreds of employees pass through our doors, many who have moved on to leading positions in their respective fields. We have watched our partners and employees become parents and then grandparents. We have established lifelong friendships with those who have worked for us as well as clients that we have served. Recent history has ushered in a new era and an energetic talent set to complement the experience of the firm’s founders. We have brought new Partners on board, including Bill Lucken and, most recently, Ken Donaven. This balance has proven extremely beneficial in embracing change and new possibilities, while examining data and insights through the prism of earned expertise and shared wisdom.
“Forty years from now,” Claar ponders, “that next generation will carry on the traditions and core values established by Bob and Jim back in 1985. From our founding, we’ve long believed in the wisdom of markets. The methods and media might change over time, but our commitment to helping our clients answer complex questions with confidence will be a constant.”
If only the same could be said for the price of gasoline.
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