Essential Media Communications

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Essential Media Communications (EMC), also known as EMC Media Communications or Essential Media, Essential Research, or simply Essential, is an Australian public relations and market research company known for its opinion polls, which are often referred to as Essential Polls.

Contents


History

Essential Media Communications was founded in 1997, with the Australian Education Union as its first client. In 2004 it launched the inaugural Essential Report, the result of public polling on social issues in Australia. [1]

Essential ran a PR campaign called "Your Rights at Work" for the ACTU ahead of Labor's win at the 2007 federal election, and ran the Australian Greens' campaign for the 2010 federal election. After working with the people behind Every Australian Counts, a grassroots campaign to create and improve the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), since 2008 Essential launched the EAC campaign in 2011, which helped to secure bipartisan support for NDIS. [1]

Its other social justice advocacy campaigns have included several environmental campaigns, Adam Goodes' anti-racism campaign entitled "Racism, It Stops With Me"; Rosie Batty's campaigns to prevent family violence, and the "Everybody's Home" campaign to strive for better housing options for everyone. [1]

Essential used to publish its polls on Crikey!, but subsequently established a relationship with Guardian Australia , whereby their polls are published for free by The Guardian . [2]

Description

The company creates public relations (PR) strategies across a number of industries, [3] and conducts opinion polls and other market research for a variety of media companies and other interest groups. [4]

Guardian Australia regularly publishes Essential's polls of voting intentions numbers, which are widely reported in other sources, along with the other major polls such as Newspoll and Roy Morgan Research. [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]

During the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia, Essential's polling has included questions about the government's handling of the pandemic, COVID-19 vaccinations and related matters. As the 2022 Australian federal election drew closer, in early February The Guardian started publishing poll results fortnightly instead of quarterly, as it had been doing. [10]

Governance

The company is co-owned by Peter Lewis and Tony Douglas, [11] who have worked in public relations for many years; [4] however, as of April 2019 the shares were not beneficially held, and ownership (a trust) is not known. [11]

Lewis is also a regular columnist for Guardian Australia . [12] [13]

Names

As of February 2022 the company is registered as Essential Media Communications Pty Ltd in the state of Victoria, while its national business name is Essential Research. [14] Their website, called simply "Essential", refers to EMC and EMC Media Communications on its privacy declaration. [15]

The Essential Report

The results of the Essential polling are published in The Guardian either quarterly, or, closer to elections, fortnightly, [10] while the full reports, including the wording of each question and breakdowns of demographic groups, are published online by Essential Media, and users can sign uo to receive summaries by email. [16] However, the questions are not published in other publications such as The Sydney Morning Herald or Australian Financial Review . [2]

Essential Media also publishes its methodology and compliance with Australian Polling Council Quality Mark standards. [17] All of its polling is done online. While it asks the "voting intention" question of its respondents twice in order to eliminate the "Don't Knows", it eliminates the remaining Don't Knows in its reporting. [2]

See also

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References

  1. 1 2 3 "Our History". Essential Media. Archived from the original on 11 February 2022. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 "Who controls opinion polling in Australia, what else we need to know about the polls, and why it matters". Inside Story. 15 May 2019. Archived from the original on 11 February 2022. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  3. ↑ "Our Work". Essential Media. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  4. 1 2 McGrath, Pat; Carter, Jeremy Story; Curnow, Sarah (10 April 2019). "Its results are splashed across newspapers". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation . Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  5. ↑ Bowe, William (8 February 2022). "Essential Research 2PP+: Labor 47, Coalition 46, undecided 8". The Poll Bludger. Archived from the original on 11 February 2022. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  6. ↑ "2022 Australian Federal Election Opinion Polls: Latest Poll Show Liberal/National Lead in Primary Votes". CrowdWisdom. 11 February 2022. Archived from the original on 11 February 2022. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  7. ↑ Beaumont, Adrian (9 February 2022). "NSW byelections preview; federal Coalition rebounds in Essential poll". The Conversation . Archived from the original on 11 February 2022. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  8. ↑ "Essential poll: majority still approve of Gladys Berejiklian and Daniel Andrews". Parliament of Australia. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  9. ↑ "Statistics - Australian: Opinion Poll Data- Australian". University of Sydney . Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  10. 1 2 Murphy, Katharine (8 February 2022). "Guardian Essential poll: voter anger cooling at Morrison government handling of pandemic". The Guardian . Archived from the original on 11 February 2022. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  11. 1 2 Morgan, Gary; Levine, Michele (11 April 2019). "For the Record: Ownership of Australian Public Opinion Polling and Market Research Companies". Roy Morgan Research . Archived from the original on 11 February 2022. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  12. ↑ "Our People". Essential Media. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  13. ↑ "Peter Lewis | The Guardian". the Guardian. Retrieved 13 December 2022.
  14. ↑ "Current details for ABN 48 074 671 462". ABN Lookup. November 2014. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  15. ↑ "Privacy Policy". Essential Media. Archived from the original on 11 February 2022. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  16. ↑ "The Essential Report: Political Insights". Essential Research. January–February 2022. Archived from the original on 11 February 2022. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  17. ↑ "Methodology". Essential Research. 7 February 2022. Archived from the original on 11 February 2022. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
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