YouGov is a British internet-based market research firm. It was launched in May 2000 by Stephan Shakespeare (CIO) and Nadhim Zahawi (CEO). It is a member of the British Polling Council. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Market research is the process of systematic gathering, recording and analyzing of data about customers, competitors and the market. ... Year 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday. ... Stephan Shakespeare (born in Germany as Stephan Kukowski) is the founder and CEO of the high-profile British Internet-based opinion pollster YouGov. ... The Chief Information Officer or CIO is a job title for the head of the information technology group within an organization. ... Chief Executive redirects here. ... The British Polling Council (BPC) is an association of market research companies whose opinion polls are regularly published or broadcast in media in the United Kingdom. ...

YouGov's Chairman since April 2007 is Roger Parry, replacing political commentator Peter Kellner who now serves as President of the company.^[1] Roger Parry(born 1953) is a media entrepreneur based in the UK. He was born in London and educated at the Universities of Bristol and Oxford. ... Peter Kellner is a journalist, political commentator and Chairman of the YouGov opinion polling organisation. ...

When YouGov floated for £18million in April 2005, Kellner owned 6% of the company.^[2]

Methodology

YouGov's methodology is to obtain responses from an invited group of Internet users, and then to filter these responses in line with demographic information. It draws these demographically-representative samples from a panel of more than 150,000 people in the UK.

As YouGov's online methods require no field-force, its costs are lower than competitors that employ traditional face-to-face or telephone methods. YouGov has exploited its cheapness and speed to conduct more polls for newspapers and television programmes than any other organisation. Its media clients include the The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Times, The Economist and Sky News. This article concerns the British newspaper. ... The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper distributed in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International which is in turn owned by News Corporation. ... The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd and edited in London. ... British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB — formerly two companies, Sky Television and BSB) is a company that operates Sky Digital, a subscription television service in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. ...

Panel members, volunteer members of the public, are credited with 50p-£2 for each survey they complete (they are sent a cheque when the amount accrued reaches £50). In addition there is a monthly prize survey, the completion of which enters the member into a prize draw, and other occasional prize surveys.

Accuracy

YouGov has contended that its opinion polls in recent UK elections, e.g. the 2001 general election, have been consistently more accurate than traditional opinion pollsters who repeatedly over-estimated the Labour vote. Tony Blair William Hague Charles Kennedy The UK general election, 2001 was held on 7 June 2001 and was dubbed the quiet landslide by the media. ... The Labour Party is a political party in the United Kingdom. ...

This pattern was repeated during the 2005 general election campaign, when most traditional polls reported Labour's support in the range 38-41%, compared with the 36% it achieved on polling day. In contrast, YouGov's nine polls during the final three weeks of the campaign all showed Labour on 36 or 37%, although NOP (published in The Independent) were the most accurate pollster in 2005. The United Kingdom general election of 2005 was held on Thursday, 5 May 2005. ... GfK NOP is a market research company based in London, formed in 2005 from the amalgamation of GfK Martin Hamblin and NOP World after the latter had been purchased by German research group GfK. NOP is a member of the British Polling Council. ... For other uses, see The Independent (disambiguation). ...

In the 2008 London Mayoral Campaign, Yougov was the only pollster to accurately predict that Boris Johnson would win the election comfortably, down to the percentage of his victory (6%).[1]

Criticism

Critics argue that, as not all of the public have access to the Internet, its samples cannot accurately reflect the views of the population as a whole. YouGov counters that they have a representative panel and they are able to weight their poll/surveys appropriately to reflect the national audience that they are aiming to poll.

It is a function of their internet panel approach that YouGov isn't able to pick up turnout factors to the same degree as other pollsters and they exclude it from their methods. However, traditional polls use widely differing methods to take account of turnout, and these produce equally varied "corrections" to the raw data. No consensus has emerged as to what, if any, "correction" has greatest validity.

The public are enticed to take part in YouGov surveys with small payments stored in their account for each survey completed. YouGov rules require participants to have earned £50 worth of survey completions before any money can be released to the participant. This requires well over 100 surveys to have been completed by the participant before they can be paid with each survey worth around 50p. Surveys are offered to individual participants infrequently and it would therefore require many years before eligibility to receive funds is possible.

Attacks on Yougov polls by Mayor Ken Livingstone

During campaigning for the 2008 London mayoral elections, a YouGov poll placed Boris Johnson 13 points ahead of the incumbent Ken Livingstone. Livingstone's campaign team branded the poll "fundamentally flawed", arguing that it failed to take account of London's larger ethnic minority population compared to the rest of the country, and saying that it would complain to the Market Research Council of Great Britain.^[3] Ipsos Mori and ICM polls put the candidates neck-and-neck.^[4] A subsequent poll was derided by Livingstone as "a transparent attempt by the Evening Standard/YouGov to give Boris Johnson a more credible lead by manipulating their figures in ways which have no credibility", a claim that is severely damaging to a polling organisation, supposed to be impartial. The London mayoral election, 2008 for the office of Mayor of London was held on 1 May 2008 and was won by Conservative party candidate Boris Johnson. ... Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (born 19 June 1964, better known as Boris Johnson)[2] is a British politician and the current Mayor of London; he is also a journalist and author, formerly serving as editor of The Spectator. ... Kenneth Robert Livingstone (born 17 June 1945) is the outgoing Mayor of London, a post he has held from its creation in 2000 until 2008. ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... This article is about the concept of a minority. ... Ipsos MORI is the second largest survey research organisation in the UK, formed by two of the UKs leading companies in October 2005. ... ICM is a public opinion researcher based in the UK. It conducts surveys for, in particular, The Guardian, the News of the world, The Scotsman and the Sunday Telegraph. ...

In the event, Yougov's final poll turned out to the only accurate prediction of Johnson's fairly comfortable win, besting most other pollsters, which were reporting small leads for Ken Livingstone.

Business

UK revenue rose +65% on an organic basis in 2006. The net margins are amongst the highest in the industry, 40%, compared to the usual 10 - 30% range that most of its competitors produce. The profits before tax (PBT) increased more than 300% from £1.0 (2005) to £4.1 (2006).

YouGov opened an office in the Middle East in 2005. The Middle East business has grown from a standing start to the same size (£4.5 million revs in 2006) as the UK business. YouGov has previously conducted polls in the USA and Canada, and the company has stated that it has plans for further international expansion.

YouGov plc, announced in December 2006 that it has committed to make a significant strategic investment in the USA, via Polimetrix, Inc., an online political and social research agency founded in 2004 by Stanford Professor Douglas Rivers.

Under the terms of the transaction, YouGov will purchase a 32% interest in Polimetrix, based in Palo Alto, California, for $7.5 million. At closing, YouGov will also have an option to purchase the remaining outstanding shares and options of Polimetrix, within 30 months of this announcement. The initial consideration will be met from the Company's existing cash reserves. The Board of Polimetrix will be made up of 5 directors including two YouGov representatives Nadhim Zahawi and Stephan Shakespeare.

The funds from this investment will be used to bring YouGov products to the American market and to expand Polimetrix's capabilities through the cross- licensing of technology and intellectual property as well as a joint selling arrangement which will allow YouGov to sell Polimetrix's products internationally, excluding the USA and Canada, and Polimetrix to sell YouGov's products, including BrandIndex(TM), in the USA and Canada. The Board anticipates that the investment will be earnings enhancing in the first full year of ownership.

Market place

In the UK, around £1.2bn is spent every year on market research. Just over a tenth (£150m) of this is online market research. This is expected to grow at around 30% per annum based on the USA experience. European online research growth was 31% in 2004 (ESOMAR).

References

1. ^ "YouGov appoints Roger Parry non-exec chairman from April 26", ADVFN, 2007-01-15. 
2. ^ "Interview: Peter Kellner, YouGov", Evening Standard, 2005-04-20. 
3. ^ Rosalind Ryan. "Mayor makes complaint against YouGov over polling", The Guardian, 2008-04-07. Retrieved on 2008-04-09. 
4. ^ Matthew Taylor. "Livingstone leads Johnson in latest poll", The Guardian, 2008-04-09. Retrieved on 2008-04-09. 

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External links

• Official site