Essential Media Communications (EMC), also known as EMC Media Communications or Essential Media, Essential Research, or simply Essential, is an Australian

public relations Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. ...

and

market research Market research is an organized effort to gather information about target markets and customers: know about them, starting with who they are. It is an important component of business strategy and a major factor in maintaining competitiveness. Ma ...

company known for its

opinion poll An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll (although strictly a poll is an actual election) is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinion ...

s, which are often referred to as Essential Polls.

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. Essential ran a PR campaign called "Your Rights at Work" for the

ACTU The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), originally the Australasian Council of Trade Unions, is the largest peak body representing workers in Australia. It is a national trade union centre of 46 affiliated unions and eight trades and la ...

ahead of Labor's win at the 2007 federal election, and ran the

Australian Greens The Australian Greens, commonly known as The Greens, are a confederation of Green state and territory political parties in Australia. As of the 2022 federal election, the Greens are the third largest political party in Australia by vote and ...

' campaign for the 2010 federal election. After working with the people behind Every Australian Counts, a

grassroots A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from the local level to effect change at t ...

campaign to create and improve the

National Disability Insurance Scheme The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is a scheme of the Australian Government that funds costs associated with disability. The scheme was legislated in 2013 and went into full operation in 2020. The scheme is administered by the Na ...

(NDIS), since 2008 Essential launched the EAC campaign in 2011, which helped to secure bipartisan support for NDIS. Its other

social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, Equal opportunity, opportunities, and Social privilege, privileges within a society. In Western Civilization, Western and Culture of Asia, Asian cultures, the concept of social ...

advocacy campaigns have included several environmental campaigns,

Adam Goodes Adam Roy Goodes (born 8 January 1980) is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the Sydney Swans in the Australian Football League (AFL). Goodes holds an elite place in VFL/AFL history as a dual Brownlow Medallis ...

' anti-racism campaign entitled "Racism, It Stops With Me";

Rosie Batty Rosemary Anne "Rosie" Batty (born 1962) is an English-born Australian domestic violence campaigner. She became a campaigner in 2014, after her 11-year-old son Luke Batty was murdered by his father, Greg Anderson. She was made Australian of the Y ...

's campaigns to prevent family violence, and the "Everybody's Home" campaign to strive for better housing options for everyone. Essential used to publish its polls on

Crikey! Crikey is an Australian electronic magazine comprising a website and email newsletter available to subscribers. Crikey was described by the former Federal Opposition Leader Mark Latham as the "most popular website in Parliament House" in ''The ...

, but subsequently established a relationship with ''

Guardian Australia ''Guardian Australia'' is the Australian website of the British global online and print newspaper, ''The Guardian''. Available solely in an online format, the newspaper's launch was led by Katharine Viner in time for the 2013 Australian fed ...

'', whereby their polls are published for free by ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide ...

''.

Description

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

'' 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 Newspoll is an Australian opinion polling brand, published by ''The Australian'' and administered by international market research and data analytics group, YouGov. Newspoll has a long tradition of predicting Australian Federal Election resul ...

and

Roy Morgan Research Roy Morgan, formerly known as Roy Morgan Research, is an independent Australian social and political market research and public opinion statistics company headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria. It operates nationally as Roy Morgan and internatio ...

. During the

COVID-19 pandemic in Australia The COVID-19 pandemic in Australia is part of the ongoing worldwide pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (). The first confirmed case in Australia was identified on 25 January ...

, 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 The 2022 Australian federal election was held on Saturday 21 May 2022 to elect members of the 47th Parliament of Australia. The incumbent Liberal/National Coalition government, led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, sought to win a fourth cons ...

drew closer, in early February ''

'' started publishing poll results fortnightly instead of quarterly, as it had been doing.

Governance

The company is co-owned by Peter Lewis and Tony Douglas, who have worked in public relations for many years; however, as of April 2019 the shares were not

beneficially held In domestic and international commercial law, a beneficial owner is a natural person or persons who ultimately owns or controls an interest in a legal entity or arrangement, such as a company, a trust, or a foundation. Legal owners (i.e. the own ...

, and ownership (a trust) is not known. Lewis is also a regular columnist for ''

''.

Names

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

''The Essential Report''

The results of the Essential polling are published in ''The Guardian'' either quarterly, or, closer to elections, fortnightly, 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. However, the questions are not published in other publications such as ''

The Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...

'' or ''

Australian Financial Review ''The Australian Financial Review'' (abbreviated to the ''AFR'') is an Australian business-focused, compact daily newspaper covering the current business and economic affairs of Australia and the world. The newspaper is based in Sydney, New S ...

''. Essential Media also publishes its

methodology In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for bri ...

and compliance with Australian Polling Council Quality Mark standards. 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.

References

External links

* *{{official, https://essentialreport.com.au/reports/federal-political-insights, The Essential Report: Political Insights Market research companies of Australia Companies established in 1997 1997 establishments in Australia Opinion polling in Australia