ICM Unlimited Shows Off PECS

British polling firm ICM Unlimited is launching PECS, a new policy and campaign evaluation tool which it says combines orthodox opinion research techniques with an emotional component, to assess new policy ideas and campaign messages ahead of their public launches.

PECS (The Policy Emotional Certainty Score) provides a single variable to help policy-makers, campaigners and communications experts understand early on in development whether their concept 'has the potential to effect behavioural or attitudinal changes', without the need for a 'full suite of traditional evaluation techniques'.

Arriving at a time of challenges for the polling industry - in the wake of its failure to predict the 2015 UK general election result or the Trump win - the index was developed by ICM Director Martin Boon, MRS silver medallist (and one-time critic), and uses data science to combine explicit survey response with implicit attitude testing.

PECS has been used to benchmark nearly fifty policies and campaigns, and among other findings suggests that Leave's Take Back Control message had twice the emotional power of Remain's 'Project Fear' arguments prior to the EU referendum; and voter support for income tax rises if ring-fenced for the NHS is likely to be forgotten at the polling booth. Meanwhile Labour's new policy on a £10 Real Living Wage (announced today) 'might be popular on an explicit level (61% support it on the orthodox ICM survey), but fails to connect emotionally'. ICM says this is 'a good example of how orthodox polling can be superficial and misleading, as its PECS Score is a low level 18/100'.

According to Boon: 'Too often political and policy campaigns have focussed on what is explicitly seen to be important rather than what moves people, sometimes with catastrophic consequences. This tool will help guide policy-makers frame and deliver their message in a much more resonant way'.

Web site: www.icmunlimited.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.