Brandwatch Qriously is a market research and polling company, owned by

Brandwatch Brandwatch is a social media suite company owned by Cision. Brandwatch sells two different solutions: Consumer Intelligence and Social Media Management. Consumer Intelligence is made up of three different products: Consumer Research and add-ons Vi ...

. They are a member of the

British Polling Council The British Polling Council (BPC) is an association of market research companies whose opinion polls are regularly published or broadcast in media in the United Kingdom. The BPC was established in 2004, twelve years after the perceived failure ...

. According to ''

Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to: People * Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer * Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian * Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician and ma ...

'', Brandwatch Qriously "provides an online service for measuring location-based public sentiments in real-time"."Qriously Ltd.: Private Company Information – Businessweek"
The company's business model is based around developing advertisements within

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...

s which display questions for users to answer.

History

Brandwatch Qriously was co-founded by Austrians Christopher Kahler (CEO), Gerald Müller and Abraham Müller. The founders were working in China in 2007, where they created Urbian, a location-based mobile business that prefigured

Foursquare Four square is a ball game. Four square may also refer to: Internet and entertainment * Foursquare City Guide, a local search and discovery app * ''4 Square'' (game show), a British game show * ''4 Square'' (TV series), a Canadian children's s ...

. Two venture capital funding rounds ran out in 2010, so they focused on building Android apps that could be profitable, and this grew into asking mobile users simple targeted questions. They returned to

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

in 2010, and raised $1.6 million in venture capital from

Accel Partners Accel, formerly known as Accel Partners, is an American venture capital firm. Accel works with startups in seed, early and growth-stage investments. The company has offices in Palo Alto, California and San Francisco, California, with additional ...

, based on setting up the company up in London. As of June 2015, Brandwatch Qriously had raised $5.1 million, and had 19 employees. Its Series A round was led by

Spark Capital Spark Capital is a venture capital firm in the United States, responsible for early-stage funding startups of consumer, commerce, FinTech, software, frontier, and media sectors. It has branches in San Francisco, Boston, and New York City. Hi ...

, and its previous backer Accel also participated.O'Hear, Steve
"Qriously Raises $3.5 Million Led By Spark Capital For Its Question-Based Mobile Ad Network"
As of March 2018, the company is owned by

Political polling

Brandwatch Qriously claimed that their polls correctly predicted the outcome of the 2016 UK Brexit referendum and the 2016 Italian referendum. On the day before the

2017 United Kingdom general election The 2017 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 8 June 2017, two years after the previous general election in 2015; it was the first since 1992 to be held on a day that did not coincide with any local elections. The governing ...

, Brandwatch Qriously and ''

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...

'' published a poll showing voting intentions of 41% for

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

and 39% for the

Conservatives Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

. The final results were 41% and 44% respectively and so the poll did not correctly predict the outcome (which would have seen Labour as the largest party in terms of MPs, although not necessarily with a majority). However, the Brandwatch Qriously figure for Labour was closer than most of the mainstream polls in the run-up to the election. On the day before the

2019 United Kingdom general election The 2019 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 12 December 2019. It resulted in the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party receiving a Landslide victory, landslide majority of 80 seats. The Conservatives made a net gain of 4 ...

, Brandwatch published a poll using the company's technology showing voting intentions of 43.2% for the Conservatives, 30.4% for the Labour Party, and 11.6% for the Liberal Democrats. The final results were 43.6% for the Conservatives, 32.2% for the Labour Party, and 11.6% for the Liberal Democrats.

Worst name in ad-tech

In 2014, Qriously won ''

Advertising Age ''Ad Age'' (known as ''Advertising Age'' until 2017) is a global media brand that publishes news, analysis, and data on marketing and media. Its namesake magazine was started as a broadsheet newspaper in Chicago in 1930. ''Ad Age'' appears in mul ...

'' award for the "worst name in ad-tech", after voting in a poll, where it beat Vungle, Nanigans, AdsWizz, and

Burt Burt is a given name and also a shortened form of other names, such as Burton and Herbert, or a place name. Burt may refer to: People *Burt Alvord (1866–after 1910), American Old West lawman and outlaw *Burt Bacharach (born 1928), American com ...

References

{{Adtech Digital marketing companies of the United Kingdom Internet properties established in 2010