Lessons from polling
29 July 2015

As I hope you are aware, MRS is supporting the independent inquiry by the British Polling Council following the results of May’s UK General Election. I have little doubt that polling will continue to be a topic of much discussion for the research sector for some time to come.

Polling accounts for only around 1% of the UK market and social research sector, but there are five simple lessons that we can all - agencies and brands– learn from the debate that has surrounded the pre-election polls:

• When taking important decisions, check the quality of your evidence base
• Make sure you know the questions you need to be asking of it
• Identify and deploy the right methodology or methodologies
• As a client, be focused and engaged; if the type and representativeness of a sample is important to you, make sure you know what it costs to get a sample that is accurate and robust
• Recognise that big data has its weaknesses; the nature of the data that has been input and the algorithms used to analyse it will be historical, and results may not be accurate when you throw new complexity into the mix.

We don’t need to wait for the results of the BPCinquiry to recognise these truths, or their universalitylity