My guest today is Merrill Dubrow, CEO of M/A/R/C Research. M/A/R/C was founded in 1965 and was recently purchased from Omnicom by the company’s CEO, Merrill Dubrow. Prior to joining M/A/R/C in 2004, Merrill held senior roles at Harris Interactive, BizRate and Quick Test.
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On Episode 209 of the Happy Market Research Podcast, I’m chatting of Merrill Dubrow, President and CEO of M/A/R/C Research, but first a word from our sponsor.
Today’s podcast is sponsored by Schlesinger Quantitative, your trusted provider of global online surveys that drive the best decisions for success in the marketplace. Schlesinger Quantitative has built an entire division of experts with extensive online research experience and an unparalleled understanding of quality drivers across panel, sample, and data.
Hi, I’m Jamin Brazil. You’re listening to the Happy Market Research Podcast. My guest today is Merrill Dubrow, CEO of M/A/R/C Research. M/A/R/C was founded in 1965, later purchased by Omnicom, and recently purchased by the company’s CEO, Merrill Dubrow. Prior to joining M/A/R/C in 2004, Merrill held senior roles at Harrison Interactive, BizRate, and Quick Test. Merrill was an OG on my podcast Episode 105. Sir, thank you very much for being on the podcast with me today.
Thanks, Jamin. It’s a pleasure to be here.
So, what did your parents do? And how has that informed your current career?
You know that’s an interesting question for me for a couple of reasons. Number 1 – My dad, I think, was much easier to see in how he kind of molded my career. He was a business guy; he ended up to be a CFO for a company called Miniplex. He was very hardworking. He made the most of his skill set. He was an overachiever. You know, frankly, I wanted to be him. Later in life, that was too lofty a goal, so I just actually wanted to half of the person he was. He was clearly my hero and taught me so much. I think the biggest takeaway was really making the most of your skill set.
With my mom, Jamin, it was just a little bit different; it was a little bit harder to see; it was a little bit harder to understand the impact of what she had on what she had on my career and how she really brought me up. You know she was very organized. My mom was extremely outgoing. My dad is the exact opposite; he is an introvert. She was very detail-oriented, and she was in charge of dressing my two sisters and myself in terms of picking out clothes. I can still remember going and getting my first suit, probably crying and yelling and screaming every step of the way, went to a store called Milton’s in Newton, Massachusetts. But she was very instrumental on my career because I just didn’t see it right away, right? So, being organized and having great time management skills and being really detail-minded. And actually, one of the things she taught me was notice everything. So I tend to notice everything there is out there. I may not comment on it. So it just really differences between my parents. You know my dad was much more of the business, the hard skills, and my mom was more of the softer skills. Both of them are incredible people. Unfortunately, I lost my dad in September. I lost my hero, but I think about him every day. And my mom is still going strong at 82 and pretty impressive, as I say, young lady.
So, you are a well-respected speaker in the market research area. In fact, I think you just spoke at the Insights show in Las Vegas.
Yeah, I did. Thank you, first of all. I think it was a great, really, really, really great conference. A big shout out to Lisa from Decision Analyst and Alice Butler on our team was heavily involved. And Jami Pulley from Critical Mix/Dynata,
