Ipsos MORI was the name of a market research company based in London, England which is now known as Ipsos and still continues as the UK arm of the global Ipsos group.[1] It was formed by a merger of Ipsos UK and MORI in October 2005.[2]

Ipsos MORI UK Ltd.
IndustryMarket research
PredecessorIpsos UK and MORI
Founded2005
HeadquartersLondon, England, UK
Key people
Kelly Beaver (CEO)
ParentIpsos
Websitewww.ipsos.com/en-uk/

The company is a member of the British Polling Council and Market Research Society.[3][4]

History edit

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.[5][6]

MORI (Market and Opinion Research International) was founded in 1969 by Robert Worcester. Robert Worcester stepped down from chairmanship of MORI in June 2005.[7] Ipsos announced it would acquire MORI in October 2005 for £88 million, and would merge it with Ipsos UK. The merged company was named Ipsos MORI.[8] In February 2022 the company rebranded to simply Ipsos.[9]

Methodology edit

Ipsos MORI's research is conducted via a wide range of methodologies, using computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI), as well as face-to-face (CAPI) and Internet surveys. Many telephone surveys use a system called random digit dialing to interview a representative group of the population.[10][11]

Controversies edit

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.[12] 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.[13][14][15]

References edit

  1. ^ "Ipsos website". Ipsos.com. Retrieved 19 April 2022.
  2. ^ "Ipsos buys Mori in £88m deal". Research. 10 October 2005. Retrieved 20 December 2012.
  3. ^ "Officers / Members - British Polling Council". www.britishpollingcouncil.org. Retrieved 6 February 2019.
  4. ^ "Ipsos MORI - Market Research Agencies - The Research Buyers Guide". Market Research Society. Retrieved 6 February 2019.
  5. ^ "Cataloguing Update: The Mark Abrams Papers – Churchill College". www.chu.cam.ac.uk. 30 August 2017.
  6. ^ "Reference document – Ipsos 2018" (PDF). Ipsos. Archived (PDF) from the original on 21 June 2020.
  7. ^ Rupert Jones (15 June 2005). "Sir Bob quits Mori chairmanship". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 December 2012.
  8. ^ Julia Day (10 October 2005). "French rival snaps up Mori". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 December 2012.
  9. ^ "Ipsos rebrands in the UK". www.ipsos.com. 1 February 2022. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  10. ^ "Ipsos MORI – IQCS". 5 August 2019.
  11. ^ "Approached by us: Telephone | Ipsos MORI". www.ipsos.com. Archived from the original on 21 June 2020. Retrieved 19 June 2020.
  12. ^ Kerbaj, Richard; Ungoed-Thomas, Jon (12 May 2013). "Switch on and you become a goldmine". The Sunday Times. Archived from the original on 21 October 2013. Retrieved 11 August 2013.
  13. ^ Kerbaj, Richard; Ungoed-Thomas, Jon (12 May 2013). "Secrets of 27m mobile phones offered to police". The Sunday Times. Archived from the original on 30 October 2013. Retrieved 11 August 2013.
  14. ^ Pete Swabey (13 May 2013). "EE and Ipsos MORI face privacy backlash over mobile data analysis". Information Age. Retrieved 11 August 2013.
  15. ^ "Ipsos MORI response to the Sunday Times". Ipsos MORI. 12 May 2013. Retrieved 11 August 2013.

External links edit