Ipsos Ideas Launch

Ipsos Ideas is the new global newsletter published by the Ipsos Group, the world's second largest survey-based marketing research company. Ipsos Ideas will be published five times a year in English, French and Spanish, and will feature essays by leaders of the company's core practices in advertising, marketing, public opinion, customer loyalty, and media research.

'Our researchers are well-known among clients and within our industry as having deep category, analytical and methodological expertise,'said Jean-Marc Lech, Co-Chairman of Ipsos and the publisher of Ipsos Ideas. 'And as a global marketing and public opinion research institution, we're privileged to hear from of millions of individuals around the world. What we are doing through Ipsos Ideas is sharing our insight and views, along with some challenging opinions, with a larger audience outside our core constituencies.'

Last year, Ipsos companies conducted more than 6 million interviews with citizens around world on behalf of more than 4,500 clients from business, trade groups, citizen associations, government, and non-government organizations.

And Lech promises that while Ipsos Ideas will always be based on solid research and data, it will also be opinionated and entertaining. In the first issue of Ipsos Ideas, John Hallward, leader of global product development for Ipsos-ASI, takes on the world of advertising, where an estimated $300 billion is spent each year globally. In the packaged goods industry, it is estimated that spending on advertising and promotions account for 25% of sales.

Hallward, with more than 15 years experience in in-market advertising, questions why so few ad campaigns achieve their goals and what advertisers could do to improve things. As well, he tackles head-on the criticism that 'researchers kill good creative ideas. This happens and I'm sorry it does,' Hallward says. 'But our leading copy tests are accurate about 80% of the time, which means we have an 80% chance of preventing a bad ad from being used....which can save (the advertiser) considerable amounts of money.'

The full text of each issue is available at www.ipsos.com/ideas or by electronic subscription.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.