Ipsos MORI

Ipsos MORI
Industry Market Research
Predecessor Ipsos UK & MORI
Headquarters London, England, UK[1]
Key people
 Ben Page (CEO)
Parent Ipsos
Website www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/

Ipsos MORI is a market research company in the United Kingdom.[2] It was formed by a merger of Ipsos UK and MORI, in October 2005.[3] Ipsos MORI conduct surveys for a wide range of major organisations as well as other market research agencies.

Ipsos MORI's Social Research Institute looks at public attitudes to key public services. Issues such as identity, social cohesion, physical capital and the impact of place on attitudes are all key themes of the Institute's work. The company also specialises in mass media, brand loyalty, marketing and advertising research. The organisation maintains a freely available archive of opinion polls and public attitude research from 1970 onwards on its UK website.

Ipsos MORI has offices in London, Manchester, Edinburgh and Belfast. Their call centre is in Edinburgh.[4][5]

History

Ipsos is one of the largest survey research organisations in the world, with offices in more than 80 countries, founded in the mid 1970s in France by Didier Truchot and Jean Marc Lech.

In 1946, Mark Abrams formed a market research company called Research Services Ltd. (RSL). RSL operated until 1991 when it was acquired by Ipsos, becoming Ipsos UK. MORI (Market & Opinion Research International) was founded in 1969 by Robert Worcester, and throughout its existence was the largest independent research organisation in the United Kingdom. MORI was bought by Ipsos in 2005 for £88 million, the combined company being now known as 'Ipsos MORI'.[6] The same year, Robert Worcester stepped down from chairmanship of MORI.[7] Ben Page is now Chief Executive.[8]

In 2006, Ipsos MORI were the first research agency in the world to gain ISO 20252, the new international quality standard for research. Ipsos MORI is a current member of the Market Research Society and are obliged to conduct surveys according to their rules. For example, Ipsos holds the data they collect in the strictest confidence and ensure it isn't passed on to third parties.

Methodology

Ipsos MORI's research is conducted via a wide range of methodologies, especially computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI), as well as face-to-face and internet surveys. Telephone surveys use a method called random digit dialing (Ipsos MORI being exempt from the Telephone Preference Service as it only blocks telephone calls that involve selling). This system basically uses randomly generated, but area-specific, telephone numbers. This is the preferred method for telephone samples as ex-directory households are included thus not biasing the sample in any way. Ipsos MORI are able to lawfully use this technology as they use it for research purposes as opposed to sales and advertising.

Controversies

In May 2013 The Sunday Times reported that Ipsos MORI had negotiated an agreement with the EE mobile phone network to commercialise the data on that company’s 23 million subscribers.[9] The article stated that Ipsos MORI was looking to sell this data to the Metropolitan Police and other parties. The data included "gender, age, postcode, websites visited, time of day text is sent [and] location of customer when call is made". When confronted by the newspaper, the Metropolitan Police indicated that they would not be taking the discussions any further. Ipsos MORI defended their actions, stressing that the company only received anonymised data, without any personally identifiable data on an individual customer, and underlining that reports are only ever made on aggregated groups of more than 50 customers.[10][11][12]

References

  1. ↑ "Ipsos MORI Offices". Ipsos MORI. Retrieved 2012-12-20.
  2. ↑ https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/about-us
  3. ↑ "Ipsos buys Mori in £88m deal". Research. 10 October 2005. Retrieved 2012-12-20.
  4. ↑ "Ipsos MORI".
  5. ↑ "Telephone (CATI) Surveys". Ipsos MORI. Retrieved 2012-12-20.
  6. ↑ Julia Day (10 October 2005). "French rival snaps up Mori". The Guardian. Retrieved 2012-12-20.
  7. ↑ Rupert Jones (15 June 2005). "Sir Bob quits Mori chairmanship". The Guardian. Retrieved 2012-12-20.
  8. ↑ Ian Tucker (2 January 2005). "This Much I know". The Observer. Retrieved 2012-12-20.
  9. ↑ Richard Kerbaj and Jon Ungoed-Thomas (12 May 2013). "Switch on and you become a goldmine". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 11 August 2013.
  10. ↑ Richard Kerbaj and Jon Ungoed-Thomas (12 May 2013). "Secrets of 27m mobile phones offered to police". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 11 August 2013.
  11. ↑ Pete Swabey (13 May 2013). "EE and Ipsos MORI face privacy backlash over mobile data analysis". Information Age. Retrieved 11 August 2013.
  12. ↑ "Ipsos MORI response to the Sunday Times". Ipsos MORI. 12 May 2013. Retrieved 11 August 2013.
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