Frank-Michael Müller

Frank-Michael Müller founded responsio GmbH in 2012 with the aim to combine his private passion for exclusive watches with his professional hobbyhorse, market research. Following 30 years in the media and market research industry, most recently as managing director of FOCUS Magazin Verlag and IMUK (Institite for Media and Consumer Research), he decided to put his knowledge and experience, as well as his professional curiosity in market research, at the disposal of the watch industry. In order to enable watch brands to make the most of their marketing budgets, Frank Michael Müller joined forces with the Sinus-Institute to develop the Watch Monitor.

The Watch-Monitor is the most comprehensive survey of the watch market from the consumers’ perspective – a multi-faceted tool for all distribution and marketing issues. Creating an equivalent for the jewellery market was a logical conclusion for Frank-Michael Müller. Instigated by Juwelier Wempe, he first launched the Jewellery-Monitor with three editions in 2016. The Jewellery-Monitor provides manufacturers and retailers essential information for the identification and approach of relevant target groups.

During his 33 years in the media industry Frank-Michael Müller was never „just“ advertisement director, publisher or managing director – but always also creative head, conceptual leader and originator of innovative and goal-oriented market research projects. To name but three examples: in the early 90s Frank-Michael Müller (then at Bastei-Lübbe) invented the KidsVA, which has been published annually ever since and remains the leading survey of children’s media consumption and product interest. Studies on advertising effectiveness and trends in magazine usage followed while at FOCUS (most recently as managing director). In 2003, Müller was the first to use RFID technology to measure advertising usage – an idea that was rewarded with an innovation award in the US.

Frank-Michael Müller has been increasingly engaged with the watch market since 2001 – initially prompted by a displeasure at a competitive title attracting a greater share of the industry’s ad revenue than „his“ FOCUS. One could argue about cause and effect, but one thing is certain: whilst Frank-Michael Müller purely professional interest in watches became a private passion, FOCUS attracted an increasing number of watch advertisements.

Frank-Michael Müller started responsio GmbH in 2012 to combine his favourite areas of expertise – market research and watches – and to make his expertise available to the sector.