Morning Consult is an American business intelligence company established in 2014.[1] It was named one of the fastest growing technology companies in North America by Deloitte in both 2018 and 2019[2][3] and was valued at more than one billion dollars in June 2021.[4] The company specializes in online survey research technology and has offices in Washington, D.C., New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco.[5]

Morning Consult
IndustryBusiness intelligence
Founded2014 Edit this on Wikidata
Founder
  • Michael Ramlet, CEO
  • Kyle Dropp, President
  • Alex Dulin, Chief Technology Officer
ProductsBrand Intelligence

Economic Intelligence

Research Intelligence

Political Intelligence

Morning Consult Pro

Audience
Number of employees
500+
Websitemorningconsult.com

Morning Consult provides global survey research tools, data services and news to organizations in business, marketing, economics, and politics. The company's proprietary brand tracking platform, Brand Intelligence,[6][7] tracks over 3,000 companies, products, and individuals across 40 countries by surveying tens of thousands of people every day on each brand it tracks.[8][9]

History

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Morning Consult was founded in 2014 by CEO Michael Ramlet, President Kyle Dropp and CTO Alex Dulin.[10][11] It started with a poll looking at whether young and uninsured Americans were going to sign up for the Affordable Care Act's insurance exchanges, published just before the exchanges went live in 2013.[12] The White House used that polling in its briefing later that day.[13]

Initially operating from a row house near Capitol Hill, the firm went from 13 employees in 2014 to 255 in November 2020.[14][15]

In 2015, the company published a report on the "Shy Trump" voter in the Republican presidential primaries.[16] The claim has since been challenged.[17]

In February 2016, Morning Consult partnered with Vox to conduct polling on topical stories in politics and culture.[18] In June 2016, Morning Consult launched the Morning Consult Brand Index in Fortune magazine's annual release of the Fortune 500 list[19] and began polling with Bloomberg News on investor sentiment.[20]

During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Morning Consult and the political journalism company Politico published a weekly polling partnership on "political issues, personalities and media aspects that affect the daily debate".[21] The polling relationship continued after the 2016 election and is released weekly in Politico Playbook.[22]

The company's polling results for the 2016 U.S. presidential election showed a closer race than other pollsters.[12][23]

In 2017, Morning Consult launched its survey research technology product, Brand Intelligence.[24] The survey research technology platform uses daily interviews with thousands of Americans to provide daily tracking on nearly 3,000 companies, products and services.[23][9]

Morning Consult conducts regular survey research with The New York Times.[25]

In October 2017, the company opened an office in New York City and then in Chicago[26] and San Francisco[27] in 2018.[28]

In 2018, the company announced it was partnering with The Hollywood Reporter for a weekly polling series on what Americans think about the hottest news and trends in Hollywood.[29]

In May 2020, Morning Consult completed a $31 million Series A funding round. The funding includes capital from James Murdoch's Lupa Systems, Advance Venture Partners and others. The funding values the company at $306 million.[1]

In June 2021, Morning Consult raised a $60 million Series B funding round led by Advance Venture Partners with additional investors Susquehanna Growth Equity and Lupa Systems. Following this round of funding, the company is valued at over $1.01 billion.[4][30]

In July 2023, Morning Consult launched Morning Consult Pro, followed by Audience in September 2023, the latest two releases in a series of decision intelligence products from Morning Consult. These products build on the company's brand, economic and political insights platform, Morning Consult Intelligence. [31]

Polling and methodology

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Morning Consult conducts scientific online polling.[32] It uses a nonprobability sampling process[33] and multiple nationally recognized vendors to gain access to tens of millions of Americans. After fielding, Morning Consult applies weights based on age, race/ethnicity, gender, educational attainment, and region (determined by 2016 Current Population Survey).

During the 2016 presidential election, Morning Consult had one of the most accurate national polls: despite calling the winner of the election incorrectly, it successfully predicted Hillary Clinton winning the national popular vote by 3 percent (she won by 2.1 percent).[34] The website FiveThirtyEight also found that Morning Consult, along with other prolific online polling firms, did not have a strong house effect (the tendency of a pollster to favor a political party) in the 2016 election.[35]

Morning Consult AI

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In November 2024, Morning Consult announced a new suite of AI tools including a chatbot, based on training using the company's 30 million survey interviews of audience, brand, economic and political perceptions. Morning Consult said it is also developing AI assistants and AI agents to automate common use cases like brand and trend reports.[36][37]

Survey on approval ratings

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The company conducts surveys on the approval ratings of the leaders of major economies.

Brand Intelligence

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In the spring of 2017, Morning Consult launched Brand Intelligence, a survey research and media monitoring platform. The platform tracks over 2,000 public-facing brands and products across 12 countries, and offers subscribers access to data on their companies as well as competitors. For each brand that is tracked, Morning Consult conducts 200 interviews per day.[23]

Brand Intelligence also provides social media listening and media monitoring services, aggregating results from over 85,000 news outlets.[citation needed]

In October 2017, data from Brand Intelligence was cited in the New York Times showing changes in survey results on the NFL's brand after President Donald Trump criticized the league on Twitter.[25]

Economic Intelligence

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Morning Consult launched its Economic Intelligence product in the fall of 2019, and in the spring of 2020 as it began to identify the dip in consumer confidence with the continued coronavirus outbreak.[38][39] The Federal Reserve cited the company's data in its emergency meeting March 15, 2020.[40]

The data is regularly referenced in the media, with past citations including The Associated Press,[41] The New York Times,[42] The Wall Street Journal,[43] and The Washington Post.[44]

Political Intelligence

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Morning Consult Political Intelligence is a tool designed to track the approval ratings of government leaders in many different countries, such as Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. The tool receives regular updates with the latest data for all the countries and offers real-time insight into the shifting political dynamics around the world.

Morning Consult Pro

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In July 2023, the company launched Morning Consult Pro, a content subscription service that provides data, charts, and insights on industry trends. Its content is powered by Morning Consult's high-frequency survey data and team of industry, economic and global politics experts. [31]

Audience

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In September 2023, Morning Consult rolled out Audience, a tool that draws on real-time data from thousands of consumers in more than 40 countries. [45]

Audience pulls demographics, psychographics and user habits through survey interviews, generating thousands of custom audience profiles. Morning Consult has created more than 2,000 predefined audience profiles, such as "monthly airplane flier" or "daily Spotify user," with the option for users to create custom audience segments. [46][47]

References

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  1. ^ a b Roof, Katie (July 15, 2020). "James Murdoch's Firm Is Among First to Invest in Morning Consult". Bloomberg.
  2. ^ "2018 Technology Fast 500 award winners | Deloitte US". Deloitte. Retrieved 2018-11-28.
  3. ^ "2018 Technology Fast 500 Ranking" (PDF). Deloitte. July 15, 2020.
  4. ^ a b Fischer, Sara (8 June 2021). "Morning Consult valued at over $1 billion following new funding round". Axios.
  5. ^ "About - Morning Consult". Morning Consult. Retrieved 2017-10-16.
  6. ^ "Brand Intelligence". Morning Consult. Retrieved 2017-10-16.
  7. ^ "Morning Consult Reveals The Most Trusted Brands of 2020". The Fox Magazine. 2020-02-22. Retrieved 2020-08-16.
  8. ^ "Here's Why Your PR Nightmare Might Not Be a Crisis After All". Fortune. Retrieved 2017-10-16.
  9. ^ a b "Brand Intelligence: Research & Analysis". Morning Consult. Retrieved 2020-07-15.
  10. ^ "Kyle Dropp - Morning Consult Co-Founder and Chief Research Officer". Morning Consult. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  11. ^ "The Weekly Notable Startup Funding Report: 5/18/20". AlleyWatch. 2020-05-16. Retrieved 2020-07-15.
  12. ^ a b "A breakout company broke the dam in 2016 polling, and now it wants to become 'the Bloomberg of public opinion'". Business Insider. Retrieved 2017-03-26.
  13. ^ "White House Release - Affordable Care Act Media Update". Morning Consult. Retrieved 2017-10-16.
  14. ^ "A breakout company broke the dam in 2016 polling, and now it wants to become 'the Bloomberg of public opinion'". Business Insider France (in French). Retrieved 2017-10-16.
  15. ^ Koma, Alex (November 24, 2020). "Exclusive: Polling and data firm Morning Consult to relocate its downtown D.C. offices". BizJournals. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
  16. ^ McGill, Andrew. "Are Many Trump Supporters Too Embarrassed to Tell Pollsters the Truth?". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2017-10-16.
  17. ^ Coppock, Alexander (2017-06-26). "Did Shy Trump Supporters Bias the 2016 Polls? Evidence from a Nationally-representative List Experiment". Statistics, Politics, and Policy. 8 (1): 29–40. doi:10.1515/spp-2016-0005. S2CID 149014617. Retrieved 2019-02-15.
  18. ^ "Vox.com and Morning Consult Join Forces on New Polling Project". AdWeek. Retrieved 2017-10-16.
  19. ^ "Morning Consult Debuts Brand Index with Fortune 500 - Morning Consult". Morning Consult. 2016-06-06. Retrieved 2017-10-16.
  20. ^ "Trump Beats Clinton for Investor Confidence in National Poll". Bloomberg.com. 2016-06-22. Retrieved 2017-10-16.
  21. ^ "Politico to launch polling partnership with Morning Consult". Politico. Retrieved 2017-10-16.
  22. ^ Shepard, Steven (14 June 2017). "Poll: Voters trust Comey over Trump". Politico. Retrieved 2020-07-15.
  23. ^ a b c Lapowsky, Issie. "Is Trump Hate-Tweeting You? Find Out if It's Really a Crisis". Wired. Retrieved 2017-10-16.
  24. ^ "Brand Intelligence". Morning Consult. Retrieved 2017-10-17.
  25. ^ a b Quealy, Kevin (2017-10-11). "The N.F.L. Is Now One of the Most Divisive Brands in the U.S." The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-10-16.
  26. ^ "Morning Consult Chicago". Morning Consult. Retrieved 2018-10-10.
  27. ^ "Morning Consult San Francisco". Morning Consult. Retrieved 2018-10-10.
  28. ^ "Morning Consult Expands Nationally to NYC, Chicago, and San Francisco". Morning Consult. Retrieved 2018-10-10.
  29. ^ "Morning Consult Joins Forces With The Hollywood Reporter For First-of-its-Kind Polling Partnership - Morning Consult". Morning Consult. 2018-10-10. Retrieved 2018-11-28.
  30. ^ Gilgore, Sara (June 8, 2021). "Morning Consult clinches unicorn status with huge funding round". www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved 2021-06-09.
  31. ^ a b Bach, Natasha (25 September 2023). "Morning Consult Rolls Out Audience Consumer Trends Product". PRWeek.
  32. ^ "A breakout company broke the dam in 2016 polling, and now it wants to become 'the Bloomberg of public opinion'". Business Insider. Retrieved 2017-10-16.
  33. ^ "The Problem With a Crowd of New Online Polls". The New York Times. September 27, 2024.
  34. ^ "2016 General Election: Trump vs. Clinton - Polls - HuffPost Pollster". The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on 2016-10-02. Retrieved 2017-10-16.
  35. ^ "Election Update: Leave The LA Times Poll Alone!". FiveThirtyEight. 2016-08-23. Retrieved 2017-10-16.
  36. ^ "Daily Research News Online no. 37556 - Launch of Morning Consult AI". www.mrweb.com. Retrieved 2024-11-21.
  37. ^ "Morning Consult launches AI toolkit | News". Research Live. Retrieved 2024-11-21.
  38. ^ "Consumers are starting to worry about COVID-19's economic impact, survey finds". Marketplace. 2020-02-26. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
  39. ^ "Coronavirus weighs on U.S. consumer sentiment in early February". Reuters. 2020-03-13. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
  40. ^ "Minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee" (PDF). Federal Reserves. July 21, 2020.
  41. ^ "Nervous consumers around world pull back amid viral outbreak". AP NEWS. 2020-03-12. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
  42. ^ "Brace for Devastating News on Jobs". The New York Times. 2020-05-08. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
  43. ^ Sparshott, Jeffrey (2020-03-12). "Newsletter: Travel Bans, Stimulus Plans and a Pandemic". WSJ. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
  44. ^ Newmyer, Tory (21 May 2020). "Analysis | The Finance 202: Trump's economic approval ratings defy his polling slide amid coronavirus pandemic". Washington Post. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
  45. ^ Livepublisher=Research Live, Research (7 September 2023). "Morning Consult Launches Insight Tool".
  46. ^ Bach, Natasha (25 September 2023). "Morning Consult Rolls Out Audience Consumer Trends Product". PRWeek.
  47. ^ "Morning Consult Launches Audience Insights Product". Daily Research News Online. 6 September 2023.
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