The person who institutionalized and corporatized public opinion research: George Gallup!

Starting in the 1980s, Gallup focused on providing analytics and management consulting to organizations globally. In addition to opinion polls, analytics, management consulting and the Gallup Survey, the company also provides education consulting.

Who is George Gallup?

Gallup was born in Iowa, the son of animal husbandry George Henry Gallup. In his youth he distributed milk and used the money he earned to publish newspapers at school. He studied at the University of Iowa. He completed his master's degree in 1925 and his doctorate in 1928 at the same university.

George Gallup conducted the first widespread opinion poll using the sampling method in the 1930s. Three separate polls in 1936 concluded that Franklin D. Roosevelt would be elected. Confirmation of this prediction gave public confidence in the opinion polls.

How did Gallup know Roosevelt would win? Moreover, he made this prediction with a smaller sample of only 50 thousand people. So the important thing was not the size of the sample, but the capacity to represent the universe and how to reduce biased sample selection. The sampling technique Gallup used was quota sampling. Quota sampling is based on knowing the characteristics of the sample. In other words, it was based on having information about the male ratio, female ratio, income status, wealth, poverty and age of the universe (society, city, institution, etc. where the research will be conducted). Based on this information, a small sample of the universe was formed by arranging it according to the ratio of the variables. Gallup sample selection was based on income level and provided a representation of each income level. In this way Gallup correctly predicted presidential elections in 1936, 1940, and 1944. By 1948, both Gallup and many research companies made mistakes.

There are many reasons why research companies made mistakes in 1948: First, most research companies stopped conducting polls in early October, but there was still a month before the election, which was held on November 2, 1948. In the 1948 election, many voters were undecided throughout the election campaign, and when these voters entered the polling booths, they cast their votes for Truman. A more important reason for Gallup's failure had to do with the representativeness of its sample. The quota sampling technique was impressive in previous years, but it was the cause of its destruction in 1948. As noted, this sampling technique required knowledge of the total population (ie, the voters). Political surveys in America drew information about population mainly from census data. In 1948, World War II caused a mass migration from the countryside to the city, the character of the population changed radically. Yet Gallup was still using the 1940 census data. City dwellers tended to vote more democratically. That's why rural votes were over-represented in his poll, and the democratic vote was underestimated.

Gallup and Nielsen are the two growing American companies that have established international dominance in today's opinion polling field. These companies also create market indexes that affect the continuity of the mass media and advertising industries' forms of market communication, the formation of prices, and the viability of programs.