IBOPE Zogby International
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Market research |
| Founded | Utica, New York, 1984 |
| Founder(s) | John Zogby |
| Headquarters | Miami, Florida, US |
| Area served | Global |
| Key people | Kjell de Orr, CEO Márcia Cavallari, CEO of IBOPE Inteligência |
| Website | www.ibope.us |
IBOPE.US is an international market research firm, created from the purchase of the public opinion polling firm founded in 1984 by John Zogby. The company polls and consults for a wide spectrum of business media, government, and political groups, and did conduct public opinion research in more than 70 countries[1]. IBOPE,US is headquartered in Miami, Florida, with an office in Utica, New York.
Contents |
[edit] Company history
John Zogby founded the polling firm Zogby International in 1984. Since then, he has conducted polls and focus groups around the world. Zogby is currently a Senior Analyst for JZ Analytics.[2]
One key reason for the Zogby's enormous success stems from his decision to maintain an in-house call center using live operators in Upstate New York. But, with the dramatic changes in the telephone industry in recent years, Zogby in 1998 began developing an interactive online polling methodology using a massive database of respondents that Zogby claims to represent the national population at large.[3]
[edit] Company Timeline
John Zogby first gained attention in the 1992 presidential election when he released a survey showing the New York State Governor Mario Cuomo would lose in his home state to incumbent President George H. W. Bush. That poll is widely thought to have pushed Cuomo from the race. Later, he gained more national attention in the 1996 Presidential election when his final poll came within a tenth of a point of the actual result. Zogby also correctly polled the cliffhanger result of the 2000 presidential election won narrowly by George W. Bush, in contrast to most other pollsters who had expected Bush to win easily.
In 2004, while Zogby's actual polling was correct, his Election Day prediction failed to materialize. Before polls closed in the 2004 presidential election, Zogby predicted a comfortable win for John Kerry (311 electoral votes, versus 213 for Bush, with 14 too close to call), saying, "Bush had this election lost a long time ago," adding that voters wanted a change and would vote for "any candidate who was not Bush." While admitting that he was mistaken, Zogby did not admit any possible flaws in his polling methods, insisting that his predictions were all within the margin of error. While on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, he said he felt that Kerry would win due to the undecided voters. Despite his personal prediction, Zogby's final poll showed Bush with a one point lead over Kerry.[4] Zogby later released a "Mea culpa" in which he stated "I will do better next time: I will just poll, not predict."[5]
In 2006, Zogby phone polling correctly called all 10 competitive United States Senate races and nailed the exact margin in the three closest races. His interactive online polling correctly called the winner of 17 of 18 races, but wrongly calculated the margin of their victory (which can be the most important aspect in measuring a pollsters accuracy) by an average of 8.6%, twice the average of Rasmussen, SurveyUSA, and Mason-Dixon.[6]
Prior to the January, 2008 New Hampshire Democratic primary, Zogby, like virtually all other pollsters, showed in his polling a large (13 points, in Zogby's case) lead for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton, adding, "Obama is still on a roll and not slowing down. He had another big day." Clinton went on to win by three percentage points. Zogby's polling results in the Iowa Caucuses, and the South Carolina, and Florida primaries, however, were far closer, and he was one of only a few pollsters to correctly call Obama's Iowa win. However, his final poll in California showed Obama winning by 13%, but the actual results showed Hillary winning by 10%, a 23-point difference far beyond the margin of error.
The company also had success with elections in countries outside the United States.[citation needed] Zogby correctly called the 2001 Israeli election for Ariel Sharon, the 2000 Mexican election for Vicente Fox and again in Mexico with the victory of Felipe Calderón in 2006.[citation needed] Zogby made a sideline of polling Arab attitudes toward the United States, particularly in regard to Lebanon.[citation needed]
[edit] Acquisition
A total interest in Zogby International was acquired by IBOPE Inteligência, a subsidiary of the IBOPE Group, a Brazilian multinational company specializing in media, market and opinion research in early 2012 cutting out John Zogby from the company he founded.
[edit] Criticism
Nate Silver statistician of FiveThirtyEight.com called Zogby International's online polling division, Zogby Interactive, "The worst pollster in the world." ranking it last in his Pollster Rankings. He also ranked Zogby's Telephone polls 53rd of 64[7]. He notes the pollster relies on one day polling which causes large fluctuations in data. Silver uses their misleading questions, seemingly to create a bias, as evidence for their status.[8]
When conducting daily tracking polls, Zogby International only releases results for the 3 day average, as explained in a methodology statement on a 2008 Reuters/C-Span/Zogby poll which states that the 2008 election “daily tracking telephone poll will continue each day until the Nov. 4 election. With each new day of responses that are folded into the poll, the oldest third of the survey is removed, so the poll "tracks" changes in voter attitudes following events and developments in the race.”
In a review of the performance of polling firms during the 2008 elections, the Wall Street Journal noted that "Zogby International polled in eight states in the last week, including six of the closest races, and missed the final margin by an average of less than two points -- as accurate as the poll aggregators such as Pollster.com."[9]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Notes
- ^ when John Zogby was still with the firm"About Zogby International". Zogby International. http://www.zogby.com/about/index.cfm. Retrieved 2008-08-09.
- ^ http://jzanalytics.com/JohnZogby.html
- ^ "Election 2006—Zogby Polling on the Mark in Tumultuous Midterms". Zogby International. 17 March 2006. http://www.zogby.com/news/readnews.dbm?id=1064. Retrieved 2008-09-08.
- ^ Alan Wirzbicki (5 November 2004). "Late polls are seen as largely accurate". Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2004/11/05/late_polls_are_seen_as_largely_accurate/. Retrieved 2008-09-08.
- ^ John Zogby (8 November 2004). "Mea Culpa: I am a Pollster, Not a Predictor". Zogby International. Archived from the original on 2008-05-26. http://web.archive.org/web/20080526013442/http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews2.dbm?ID=928. Retrieved 2008-09-08.
- ^ Carl Bialik (16 November 2006). "Grading the Pollsters". The Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB116360961928023945-NgMgbTwNTEbcTx_C47luM8eH8lM_20071115.html?mod=blogs. Retrieved 2008-09-08.
- ^ http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/06/pollster-ratings-v40-results.html
- ^ Silver, Nate (July 6, 2010). "A Note to John Zogby". FiveThirtyEight.com. http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/search/label/zogby.
- ^ Bialik, Carl (2008-11-06). "Polls Foresaw Future, Which Looks Tough for Polling". The Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122592455567202805.html.
