The Harris Poll
The Harris Poll is an American market research and analytics company that has been tracking the sentiment, behaviors and motivations of American adults since 1963. In addition to the traditional consulting offered, Harris has developed software data platforms that allow brands to track health and campaign success. The firm works with clients in three primary areas: brand strategy and tracking,[1] corporate reputation,[2] and research for public release.[3]
Company type
Market research and opinion polling
1963
New York City
Will Johnson (co-CEO),
John Gerzema (co-CEO),
Mark Penn (chairman)
The Stagwell Group
The Harris Poll was started by Louis Harris, an opinion pollster who founded his own firm, Louis Harris & Associates, in 1956.[4] The business was later rebranded Harris Interactive. It was acquired from Nielsen in 2017 by the Stagwell Group, which hired co-chief executive officers John Gerzema and Will Johnson, who relaunched the firm as The Harris Poll.[5] Stagwell founder and managing director Mark Penn was chairman and CEO of MDC Partners. The Harris Poll is headquartered in Chicago and New York City, with additional offices in Washington, D.C., and Rochester, New York.
The Harris Poll runs the longest-standing and largest data set on public opinion research on the coronavirus pandemic in the United States through its COVID-19 Tracker, a biweekly online survey of a nationally representative sample of American adults.[6]
Since its acquisition by The Stagwell Group in 2017, The Harris Poll has been led by Chairman Mark Penn and Co-Chief Executive Officers John Gerzema and Will Johnson.
Mark Penn, whose career spans 40 years in market research, advertising, public relations, polling and consulting, is president and managing partner of The Stagwell Group, a private equity firm with investments in digital marketing services.[17] Before founding the Stagwell Group in 2015, Penn was chief strategy officer and executive vice president at Microsoft Corp.[18] For six years, he was White House pollster to President Bill Clinton and was a key adviser in his 1996 re-election.[19] Penn later was chief strategist to Hillary Clinton her U.S. Senate and 2008 presidential campaigns.[20] After graduating from Harvard College in 1976, Penn and his future business partner Doug Schoen started Penn & Schoen[21] – now PSB Insights - and helped elect more than 25 government leaders in Asia, South America and Europe, including Tony Blair[21] and Menachem Begin.[22] Penn was also CEO of Burson Cohn & Wolfe, a public relation company owned by WPP Group, from 2006 to 2012. He is the author of Microtrends Squared: The New Small Forces Driving Today's Big Disruptions, which was published in 2018 as an update to his 2007 book Microtrends.[23] Penn has been a columnist for The Wall Street Journal,[24] Time, Politico,[25] The Hill and the Huffington Post. He is a visiting lecturer at Harvard College.
John Gerzema, who began a career in advertising and marketing in 1987, became co-CEO of The Harris Poll in 2017,[26][27] after almost seven years as chairman and CEO of BAV Consulting, a unit of advertising agency Young & Rubicam, today known as VMLY&R.[28] Previously, he was Chief Insights Officer for Young & Rubicam, which is part of WPP Group.[29] Gerzema is the author of three best-selling books, "The Brand Bubble," "Spend Shift," and "The Athena Doctrine,"[30] a 2013 exploration of the rise of feminine values in society, leadership and business, which became a New York Times and Washington Post best-seller.[31][32] He has given TED Talks[33][34] and written numerous articles for such publications as the Harvard Business Review[35] and was named 'Top Management Articles of the Decade' by Strategy & Business. He keynoted the Milken Global Conference with global research amid the global pandemic in 2020.[36]
Will Johnson was named co-CEO of The Harris Poll in 2017,[26][27] after a decade as an executive in advertising, marketing and consumer research. Immediately prior to joining The Harris Poll, he was president of BAV Consulting, a Young & Rubicam company, today known as VMLY&R, and chief strategist of BrandAsset Valuator, an analytic survey of brands and consumer behavior. Before that, from 2008 to 2015, Johnson was a senior vice president and director at Young & Rubicam. He presented at the World Economic Forum in 2016 a report on "Best Countries," a rating of 80 nations in a partnership with U.S. News & World Report and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. Johnson has written for and been quoted in numerous articles for The Washington Post, Harvard Business Review,[35] Fortune,[37] Ad Age,[38] Sports Illustrated,[39] Yahoo Finance,[40] Chicago Tribune,[41] and Crain's Chicago Business,[42][43] among other publications.
Chief executive officers
Operations[edit]
The Harris Poll works in a wide range of industries, across countries and territories in North America, Europe, and Asia. The firm primarily focuses on leveraging market research methodologies and proprietary models to assist corporations with go-to-market strategies, brand equity management, corporate reputation, and thought leadership.
The company has been a member of several research organizations, including the US National Council of Public Polls, the British Polling Council, the Council of American Survey Research Organizations, the US Council for Marketing and Opinion Research, and the UK Market Research Society.
As a portfolio firm within The Stagwell Group, The Harris Poll works closely with its sister firms, including:
• Code and Theory
• Emerald Research Group
• Finn Partners
• Harris X
• INK
• Locaria
• MDC Partners
• MMI
• Multiview
• NRG
• Observatory
• SKDKnickerbocker
• Targeted Victory
• Wolfgang
• WyeComm
The Harris Poll engages clients with a brand-tracking platform, market research and brand strategy consulting, omnibus quick-turn polling, corporate reputation consulting, and thought leadership consulting.