Ipsos

• 1. Introduction

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  Ipsos, the French market research firm, began in 1975 as an experiment in measuring something most French businesses had never thought to track: whether their advertising was actually working. Its founder, Didier Truchot, had spent time at the Institut français d'opinion publique before setting out on his own in Paris. The name itself carries a double meaning, serving as an acronym for Institut Public de Sondage d'Opinion Secteur while drawing on a Latin expression. What started as a niche consultancy for advertisers became, over five decades, a firm with offices in 87 countries and around 20,000 employees. How did a modest Parisian outfit grow into the world's third largest research agency? The answers lie in a series of bold bets, unlikely partnerships, and a persistent willingness to buy rather than build.

• 2. Paris Beginnings

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  Truchot built Ipsos's early reputation on a practical problem: French advertisers had no reliable way to know if their campaigns were landing. His first response was the Baromètre d'Affichage, or BAF, launched in 1977 to measure how well billboard advertisements were performing. Two years later, in 1979, Ipsos introduced the France des Cadres Actifs, a tool designed to map the reading habits of French executives. These were genuinely new offerings in the French market, and they gave Ipsos a foothold in the advertising and media sector.

  Profitability proved harder to achieve than recognition. The company's financial results stayed modest until Jean-Marc Lech joined as co-chairman. Lech's arrival shifted the firm's scope: Ipsos moved into public opinion research, another field where France had little established practice. By the end of the 1980s, Ipsos had climbed to become the fifth largest media research company in France. French policymakers were unusually active during that period, which generated steady demand for opinion research and helped stabilise the company's position.

• 3. Building Across Europe

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  In 1992, Truchot and Lech opened the company to outside investors for the first time, bringing in Baring Private Equity as the initial shareholder. The two founders held on to two-thirds of the company between them, preserving their control while gaining capital to pursue acquisitions. Throughout the 1990s, that capital went to work across the continent. Ipsos expanded into Spain, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Central Europe, with Hungary among the notable new markets.

  By the mid-1990s, Ipsos had become one of the leading research firms in Europe, and the founders decided the next step was a move beyond the continent. They sold 40 percent of the company to two new partners: the Artemis Group, led by François Pinault, and the Amstar investment fund, led by Walter Butler. That transaction gave Ipsos the resources to pursue a genuinely global strategy.

• 4. Going Global

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  In 1997, Ipsos entered South America through the acquisition of Novaction's companies operating in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico. The following year it crossed into North America by purchasing ASI Market Research, an American firm. Then in 1999, Ipsos listed on the Paris stock exchange, an event that allowed Artemis and Amstar to exit while handing Ipsos fresh capital for further deals.

  With that capital, the company moved quickly on several fronts at once. Ipsos joined the creation of MMXI Europe, an internet audience research joint venture in which partner Media Matrix held the majority and Ipsos held 20 percent. It also took control of four subsidiaries of NFO Worldwide that specialised in access panels. In 2000, Ipsos purchased the Canadian firm Angus Reid, renaming it Ipsos-Reid. In 2009, a partnership with Thomson Reuters produced multi-country polling on consumer confidence, politics, and economics, with results published through Reuters. The single largest acquisition came in 2011, when Ipsos bought Synovate, the research division of Aegis Group Plc, vaulting the combined organisation to the position of the world's third largest research agency. On the 30th of October 2018, Ipsos added Synthesio, a social intelligence platform that Forrester Research had identified as the leading global social listening service since 2014.

• 5. The KnowledgePanel

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  Polling in the United States runs through a structure called KnowledgePanel, which holds around 60,000 members who serve as potential respondents. Recruitment does not rely on online sign-ups or volunteer lists. Instead, Ipsos uses address-based sampling, drawing its sampling frame from the United States Postal Service's Delivery Sequence File. Households receive an invitation to join through mail or telephone, and if a recruited respondent lacks internet access, Ipsos provides it.

  Once someone joins, their demographic profile is recorded and used to route them to relevant surveys. General population polls draw from the full panel; narrower inquiries use stratified samples that target specific groups. Survey results are weighted against two benchmarks: the Current Population Survey and the American Community Survey, both drawn from United States census data. Respondents receive incentives for completing surveys. A FiveThirtyEight analysis of the 2021-2022 United States election cycle found that Ipsos polls correctly predicted winners only 17 percent of the time in the last 21 days before each election, across races for state governor, U.S. Senate, and House of Representatives.

• 6. The UK Chapter

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  MORI, which stood for Market and Opinion Research International, was founded in 1969 by Robert Worcester. Meanwhile, Research Services Ltd., formed by Mark Abrams in 1946, operated until 1991, when Ipsos acquired it and it became Ipsos UK. When Robert Worcester stepped down from the chairmanship of MORI in June 2005, Ipsos moved quickly. In October 2005, Ipsos announced it would acquire MORI for £88 million and merge it with Ipsos UK. The resulting entity took the name Ipsos MORI.

  In May 2013, The Sunday Times reported that Ipsos MORI had negotiated an arrangement with the EE mobile phone network to commercialise data tied to that network's 23 million subscribers. The data in question covered gender, age, postcode, websites visited, the time of day texts were sent, and location when calls were made. Ipsos MORI responded by stressing that it received only anonymised data and that reports were produced only for aggregated groups of more than 50 customers; the Metropolitan Police, one of the reported prospective buyers, indicated it would not pursue the arrangement further. In February 2022, Ipsos MORI dropped the MORI name and began operating simply as Ipsos.

• 7. Scale and Revenue

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  Ipsos revenues reached €2,525 million in 2025, with an organic growth rate of 0.6 percent that year. The revenue split across regions shows how broadly the firm's work is distributed: 49 percent came from the EMEA region covering Europe, the Middle East and Africa; 35 percent came from the Americas; and 16 percent came from Asia-Pacific. According to the ESOMAR Global Market Research Report for 2024, Ipsos ranked fourth globally in the market research sector in 2023, with revenues of $2,585 million, behind IQVIA at $5,616 million, Nielsen Holdings at $3,500 million, and Kantar Group at $2,980 million.

  In November 2021, Ben Page became CEO, with Truchot, the company's founder, stepping back to the role of Chairman. Page then held the position until September 2025, when Jean Laurent Poitou succeeded him. In February 2023, Ipsos acquired Xperiti, a New York-based business-to-business research firm, for an undisclosed sum. Truchot's transition from CEO to Chairman after nearly five decades with the company he built marks the clearest measure of how far Ipsos had travelled from its first billboard measurement tool in 1977.