The quantitative trends that tossed Dichter aside have ultimately led back to his ideas.Companies selling insight into the consumer unconscious are now quick to couch their approach in empirical terms.
"Data itself is going to be nearly worthless – you have to sell insights from the data and suggestions of what to do".
When it comes to productizing these solutions for consumers, it's important for entrepreneurs to remember to package their offerings not as Analytics, Data or Tools, but instead to sell Insights from the numbers.
It is now some five years later and I am back in Baku, still struggling to cull and then sell insights and information for a living that I now gather at the score or more of Western watering holes that now grace the capital of Azerbaijan, half of which could have been mine if I had a business brain.
Hoping to follow in the footsteps of Henry A. Kissinger, who started a consulting firm and made millions, and former President George Bush, who is a senior adviser to the Carlyle Group, a Washington investment firm, Mr. Cohen is selling his insights, door-opening skills and star power in a new twist on Washington's revolving door between government service and private gain.
That hints to eRated's business model: selling seller insights to marketplaces and helping sellers themselves make better use of data to help them, well, sell more.
Honda Motor started selling its Insight hybrid in March in Japan and the United States, while Mitsubishi Motors said last week that it would market the iMiev, a compact electric car, starting in July.
Rival company ShareThis, founded in Mountain View, Calif., in 2007, is selling its insight to publishers, who aim to leverage consumer data to bring in more ad revenue.
Honda reports having sold 7,084 Insights by July of this year; they are still rare, and enticing.
