News

06 november 2011

He holds the keys to buyers

BLUE ASH - Not so long ago, the Cincinnati Convention and Visitors Bureau wanted help in turning around potential visitors' negative opinions of the region.

Instead, the bureau discovered visitors didn't think poorly of Cincinnati - they just didn't think about the region at all.

That insight was delivered by marketing research firm R.L. Repass & Partners, which is quickly earning a reputation for unlocking the minds of consumers.

"Before we did the study there were a lot of assumptions about why people weren't coming to Cincinnati," says Dan Lincoln, president and CEO of the Cincinnati Convention and Visitors Bureau. "They were wrong."

Today, the bureau's bookings of events at Duke Energy Convention Center have increased each year over the past six. "Their research completely changed the way we positioned Cincinnati, and it has been critical to our success," Lincoln says of Repass.

Founded in 2001 by Rex Repass, the company has grown its business by 20 percent each year since. This year, Repass, 57, expects to reach $2 million in revenue for the first time.

The company's beginning looked rocky. Repass started the venture from the kitchen table of his home in Glendale just two months before terrorists attacked on 9/11, starting one of the biggest economic downturns of his career.

"Things got pretty dicey," Repass says. "The first six months were pretty rough, but we were able to make a go of it."

He credits a solid background built through years of working in the industry with companies such as MarketVision Research in Blue Ash, where he was a partner, and with a previous entrepreneurial venture in Charleston, W.Va., his hometown. He earned a reputation as an expert in brand strength and corporate image.

That reputation helped to sustain his business during the most recent downtown, too. General Motors, for instance, asked Repass to survey potential car buyers in an effort to re-position its Chevrolet brand. As with many such research projects, GM learned insights that it did not expect, Repass says.

Repass' survey results showed that consumers would be more positively inclined toward the brand if GM brought the cars to them. So GM began showing its vehicles at arts fairs, community events and military bases.

"We advised them to expose buyers to the design changes they had introduced and to bring the cars to potential buyers so they could test drive them," Repass says. "They saw a sales bump from the changes."

Lincoln, president of the convention and visitors bureau, says Repass stands out because of how well it works with clients to get the insights and then the results they're looking for.

"I've never worked with a firm that has offered this kind of partnership," Lincoln says. "They work with you from the strategy to the execution to the follow up. They're the complete shop. You get where you need to be."

Repass says his firm uses several methods to do that:focus groups, baseline and tracking research, perceptual mapping, segmentation analysis and brand strength and equity measures.

Repass also developed a unique product for Internet opinion research called MindField. It uses more than 2 million pre-screened households both within the U.S. and without to give clients real-time data broken down by demographic sub-groups.

"We can quickly and relatively inexpensively conduct research with respondents around the world," Repass says.

MindField is operated in conjunction with McMillion Research, a Charleston-based data collection company that shares a marketing and operating agreement with Repass.

Looking ahead, Repass says his goal is to keep the business strong for his family, three of whom work in the company. Megan Popp, qualitative research director, and Sarah Robben, project manager, are his daughters. His son-in-law, William Krieger, is client service director.

"I'm very protective of the family business. I'd like this to be my legacy."

Email vprevish@fuse.net