Alain Joseph Tessier

1933 - 2018

Alain Joseph Tessier

Bronx - Media research pioneer Alain Joseph Tessier, who co-founded Mediamark Research Inc., passed away peacefully August 26, 2018 at the age of 85, surrounded by his family at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx, NY. Alain had succeeded in beating two forms of lung cancer into submission and remission, but succumbed to complications from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, according to his wife Merle (Sprinzen) Tessier.

He was predeceased by his brothers Gaston, John and Louis and sisters Pauline and Carmen. Youngest brother Tim will be telling stories at the Celebration of Alain's Life, time and location to be announced. We are sure T-boy, as he was affectionately called by the family, will be sorry to miss this party as he always loved a good one.

"T-Boy" was born in a French-speaking home in Burlington, VT August 14, 1933. His mother Marguerite made sure he attended Catholic schools, including St. Michael's College in Winooski, VT and Notre Dame, where he earned a Masters in literature. Though his parents Amadee and Marguerite came to this country with nothing, they made sure to educate all of their children. Alain, in turn, made sure it was possible for his children and grandchildren to attend university.

"Husband" was the name given to Alain by his first wife Rosemari Jean (Snodgrass) Tessier. They were married in New Carlisle, IN, on December 18, 1957. "Roe" predeceased him in 2007. Together they had three children: Timothee Erik Tessier, born in Nuremburg, Germany (deceased 1999), Denise Allyn Horton born in Chicago, IL and Danielle Helen Tessier, born in New York, NY. Timmy's widow Kathleen Tessier made Alain's life a little more beautiful each time she saw him with her botanical talents, and chef Robert Horton increased Alain's waistline a little with each visit to his restaurant or home by serving delectable creations, which usually included pork something or other.

"Grandpa" was blessed with seven "Bag o' Baggages": Renee Marguerite Nunley, Rebecca Rosemari, Marguerite Francis, Kaela Heather and Colleen Carmen Horton, and Zoe Jane and Benjamin Alain Minto. They were often blessed with his blueberry pancakes and real maple syrup.

After Rosemari's death, and after more than 20 years of being professional colleagues and friends, Alain and Merle kindled a romance. They were married on September 12, 2010 in East Providence, RI. Traveling, cooking, eating and being together were constant sources of comfort and enjoyment—to the extent that when they were not together for some reason Alain's constant refrain was "Where's Merle?"

Alain's career started in the production department of the Chicago Tribune, continued with a long and productive stint at the American Research Bureau and proceeded apace as Vice-President, Director of Client Services, for the Target Group Index. But it is his role as co-founder of Mediamark Research Inc.—known widely as MRI—where Alain made his greatest and most lasting contribution to media research.

Along with his great friend, Timothy Joyce, Alain confronted the unenviable challenge of trying to compete successfully against an existing magazine and newspaper audience ratings service and even supplant that service. Starting from a Manhattan hotel suite in the late '70s, Alain and Timothy built a thriving business and, along the way, succeeded in establishing a new method in the United States for measuring magazine readership. The competition was keen and fierce at times, but the debates always centered on issues of research quality, utility and validity. Almost 40 years after its initial offering, MRI continues to adhere to the rigorous research standards demanded by Timothy and Alain through what is now known as GfK MRI.

Leading a ratings service is seldom pleasant. It has often been said that the minute MRI released its twice-yearly data, half of its clients were more than a little displeased. So Alain spent the better part of the last quarter century explaining and analyzing data and responding to client complaints. He would demonstrate complete familiarity with the critical research issues and provide lines of analysis that the magazines had never thought of themselves, all the while displaying a vast knowledge of the workings of magazines and advertising agencies. Alain did all of this in his inimitable style: half Franklin Roosevelt, half Casey Stengel. Like Roosevelt, Alain would listen cordially to the litany of complaints, nodding at the appropriate moments, and every one of the publishers would leave the meeting wrongly thinking Alain was agreeing with their point of view. Like Stengel, his responses would sometimes constitute a wide-ranging—some might call it rambling—discourse sprinkled with literary references on brand equity, circulation management, sampling error and arcane methodological issues. Sometime later, many a client likely reflected on what Alain had said and realized they had witnessed a master dialectician ply his trade. This mixture of warmth, circumlocution and graciousness earned him the respect of his peers and clients.

Alain was a lover of boating, good food, wine and people, and less-good vodka. He led a life larger than his 6'1" 280-pound frame. To his family, he was known as an adventurer, bedtime musician, kitchen table artist, poet and captain of many crunches. We all have fond memories of The Pit, a boat larger than his first apartment in Chicago that he shared with his young family, for which it was aptly named. Alain had an appetite for life to the end: The morning of his death, T-boy drank a large cup of coffee and ate a cinnamon roll bigger than a moose head.

~ and that's the true truth.