Opinium Research Explained

Opinium
Foundation:	2007
Location:	London and New York
Key People:	James Endersby (CEO & President), Mark Petrone (VP Research, US), Emily Dickinson (Director), Wez Eathorne (Director), Alexa Nightingale (Director), Steve Looney (Director), Kate Jalie (Director), Rhys Jones (Director)
Industry:	Market Research
Services:	Brand & Communications ResearchProduct & Service Development ResearchStakeholder ResearchThought Leadership Research
Num Employees:	103

Opinium is a market research and insight agency established on 7 September 2007. It is headquartered in New York^[1] and London.^[2] Its chief executive is James Endersby.^[3] The agency works across five practice areas: Brand & Communications, Product & Service Development, Stakeholder Research, and Thought Leadership.^[4] It is chiefly known for its full service market research and insight consultancy for clients ranging from Vodafone, Unilever, Santander, MetLife, Dawn Foods, Direct Line Insurance, Itsu, Next, Amnesty International, to the London School of Economics and Canderel.^[5]

The agency also works in the political space and conducts political polls on behalf of The Guardian US^[6] in the United States and The Observer, and The Guardians Sunday edition in the United Kingdom.^[7] Opinium's most recent success in political polling came at the 2019 UK General Election where they were the most accurate agency,^[8] calling the actual results. In the 2016 EU Referendum, Opinium were the only agency to predict the eventual outcome with the smallest error.^[9] As well as political surveys, Opinium also explore topical social and political issues. Opinium has also been celebrated for being a great place to work for employees and currently hold three best place to work awards, including the Women in Research Best Place to Work Globally 2019^[10] and The Drum Agency Business Awards Great Place to Work 2018 and 2019.^{[11] [12]} They have also won the UK Market Research Society Best Place to Work Award a record three times.^[13] Opinium are also ranked the 9th^[14] Best Place to Work in the UK (SME), and ranked 2nd for the Best Workplace for Women.^[15]

Opinium is a member of the Market Research Society (MRS),^[16] The Insights Association of America and the British Polling Council (BPC).^[17]

Political poll archive

The company has freely available political voting intention polls on their website along with results from regular surveys conducted on current and topical events.^[18]

In February 2022, Opinium altered their weighting methodology. Most significantly turnout weighting changes will reduce the effect of Conservative voters who have recently moved to undecided. The effect of these changes was to reduce the Labour lead stated from about 10% to 3%. The four main changes were:^[19]

• voting intention has usually been over-stated by online survey respondents, and unequally across demographic groups, so only respondents who give a voting intention will be used and weighting as in recent general elections only applied to that group rather than jointly with non-voters;
• the number of people who have low and mid levels of attention to politics has usually been under-represented in online surveys, so sampling was improved to include an appropriate number of people who have low and mid levels of attention to politics;
• weighting on ethnicity was introduced;
• previous weighting was correct overall on education profile and age profile, but for older people graduates were significantly over-represented, so cross weighting between age, gender, and education qualifications was introduced.

See also

• Marketing research

External links

• Official website
• Political polling

Notes and References

1. Web site: Opinium opens New York office News. 2020-10-15. Research Live. en.
2. Web site: opinium officecaddress - Google Search. 2020-10-15. www.google.com.
3. Web site: Daily Research News Online no. 11041 - Opinium Appoints New MD. 2020-10-15. www.mrweb.com.
4. Web site: What we do. 2020-10-15. Opinium. en-GB.
5. Web site: Case Studies Archive. 2020-10-15. Opinium. en-GB.
6. News: office. GNM press. 2020-07-08. Nine in ten Americans agree that racism and police violence are a problem according to new poll by Opinium and Guardian US. en-GB. The Guardian. 2020-10-15. 0261-3077.
7. News: Observer/Opinium Polls . BBC News . 2009-07-10 . 2010-09-16.
8. News: 2019-12-14. Election results 2019: Opinion poll accuracy holds up. en-GB. BBC News. 2020-10-15.
9. News: Performance of the polls in the EU referendum.
10. Web site: Best Place to Work Awards. 2020-10-15. www.womeninresearch.org.
11. Web site: 2019-06-25. Agency Business Awards 2019. 2020-10-15. The Drum Awards. en.
12. Web site: katy.thomson_1012. 2018-02-20. Agency Business Awards 2018. 2020-10-15. The Drum Awards. en.
13. Web site: Research Live Awards Market Research Society. 2020-10-15. Market Research Society. en.
14. Web site: UK's Best Workplaces: Small Category - Great Place to Work® UK - Building and recognising successful workplaces. 2018-10-25. www.greatplacetowork.co.uk. en-gb.
15. Web site: UK's Best Workplaces for Women: Small Category - Great Place to Work® UK - Building and recognising successful workplaces. 2018-10-25. www.greatplacetowork.co.uk. en-gb.
16. News: Register of MRS Company Partners – Full A-Z Listing Market Research Society Market Research Society. Market Research Society. 2018-10-25. en.
17. Web site: Officers / Members . The British Polling Council . 2017-11-18.
18. Web site: Election Polling Centre . opinium . 2013-01-14.
19. Web site: UK: Voting intention and methodology update – 11th February 2022 . Opinium . 12 February 2022 . 13 February 2022 . 12 February 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220212225206/https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/uk-voting-intention-27th-january-2022-2/.