Selling data on what people do to those itching to learn of the next 'big idea'

Didier Truchot of Ipsos is able to identify global trends, particularly on consumer behaviour, writes UNA McCAFFREY

DIDIER TRUCHOT is known as a bit of a guru in his native France and lives up to the image by dressing only in black (no tie). Coupled with the laid-back French drawl and the whiff of tobacco, the uniform lends him gravitas, a gravitas justified in the business world by his chairmanship of Ipsos, the French market research company.

Truchot founded Ipsos, now a €1 billion listed company, in 1975 and has since expanded outside France into most continents. In Ireland, his connection comes through Ipsos MRBI, the research company probably best known for conducting political polls for this newspaper. Ipsos acquired the company from WPP last summer, bringing Truchot back to the country he first encountered as a teenage waiter during a 1960s summer in Kinsale.

Ireland, he says, has always differentiated itself in its history by “being able to do something about” its circumstances, including those that now prevail.

He says most international business people seem to expect Ireland to emerge from its current pain, citing a “sense of confidence” in its ability to do so.

“Of course Ireland is not always as popular as it should be,” he says, referring to the corporation tax rate that is unpopular in many international circles. But, he adds, this is more about “how Europe is managed” than anything else.

It is an astute observation and an educated one since, more than most, Truchot is tuned into how satisfied or otherwise populations are with those who govern them.

Ipsos has a total of about 5,000 clients around the world, many in the political sphere. He describes his firm’s work as selling information about what people do and how they react to whatever is before them. “One of the biggest issues the western world is facing now is the relationship between politicians and the people.” He points to France, where President Sarkozy’s popularity has been falling, and the US, where Obama has seen the same thing. He isn’t so close to Irish politics, but the parallels aren’t hard to see.

“Fifty years ago, it took two or three years for a president to have a poor rating, now it just takes two or three months,” he notes.

“There is a sense among people that politicians talk a lot but that, all in all, the system is not working.”

One of the main problems faced by politicians in general is “permanent thinking that the facts are not on the table”.

He points to a “growing distance” between citizens, institutions and politicians in polls his company conducts all over the western world, in which he includes countries such as Japan and Brazil. “In the western world, there is a sense that the future will not be as good.”

Going after bankers’ bonuses and the salaries of chief executives is “a symbol of a society which is not fair”. People are “anxious”, a feeling typically translating into conservative behaviour such as saving more.

Truchot, speaking personally, believes this will not change until politicians are prepared to come out and say how society will become more transparent.

“People are expecting to hear the truth from their leaders,” he says. He speaks from a position of authority on the political front, his company having been the main provider of polls to the French president, whoever that may have been, since 1981.

“Some are more frightened than others by the results,” he says of the various parties.

One byproduct of conducting different research in 64 countries is that Truchot can claim to be able to identify global trends, particularly when it comes to consumer behaviour.

“People are interested in buying the big idea,” he says, pointing to Apple, or at least to its products, as an “idea” that is justifiably generating appeal. For the most part, he thinks companies are following the “me-too” route, where one product looks like the next and no brand emerges as being different. This makes price the dominant guiding factor for purchases, and inevitably leads to deflation.

“There are too few examples of great ideas being brought to the people,” says Truchot, pointing to Apple’s iPhone as one of the only current products that consumers are genuinely “happy” to use. Elsewhere, we are uninspired, he believes.

A father of five, Truchot sees his children’s generation (the eldest is 34) as being more cynical than his, and finds it hard to work out what might change that. He believes he and his peers were more hopeful, becoming charmingly wistful at the memory.

“I was part of a generation where the world was opening, where we thought we’d live in a different world,” he says, sounding just a little bit disappointed in how it turned out.