NZ's leading independent online news source Scoop.co.nz has teamed up with data heavyweights Roy Morgan Research and Spark Venture's brand-new big-data start up Qrious to deliver a under the covers perspective on the 2014 NZ General Election that has never been seen before.

"Scoop is delighted to have brought together the power and depth of Roy Morgan Research's Single Source survey data - and its continuous electoral polling - together with the data science experience of Qrious, and a team of very experienced political pundits and media players. Together we plan to delve deep inside what is going on in this year's fascinating electoral contest," says Scoop Publisher Alastair Thompson.

The NZ Election Data Consortium's work will be presented on the ElectionResults.co.nz website which was hosted by Scoop for the 2011 election and powered by the prediction engine of the iPredict.co.nz prediction market. iPredict is a company owned by Viclink, a business unit of Victoria University.

For the 2011 general election Roy Morgan Research's poll proved to be the most accurate capturing the last minute surge by NZ First accurately. In the same election the iPredict market was proved to be the most accurate predictor of the outcome forecasting the result almost exactly as the market closed to coincide with the closing of polling.

This time round it is hoped that the crowd-wisdom driven iPredict market, informed by significantly richer data and analysis will perform even more accurately. The iPredict market's predictions are based on the trading decisions of a crowd of experienced political pundits who trade on probabilities with real money futures contracts.

For the 2014 election The NZ Election Data Consortium's editorial team will be led by Scoop's Ian Llewellyn. Joining him writing commentary and analysis will be political commentator Matthew Hooton of Exceltium.

During the campaign NZ Election Data Consortium members including Scoop and NZ business news wire service BusinessDesk will have special access to report on insights gleaned from a combination of Roy Morgan Research's polling data, its Helix Personas segmentation breakdown and the results of its Reactor (the original Worm) which graphs New Zealanders’ reactions, second by second, to our politicians’ pontifications.

In the final weeks of the campaign, working with Scoop and the consortium, Roy Morgan Research is planning to deploy a live mobile Reactor App (graphing viewers’reactions from home in real time) during the broadcast of the major set-piece television debates. Viewers of the debate who do not wish to participate will also be able to watch the Worm during the broadcast on PCs, laptops and tablets.

"In recent years we have seen elections in NZ, Australia, the US, the UK and most recently, Indonesia, consistently go down to the wire in a manner that has been making predicting the results increasingly difficult. Again, the Morgan Poll was the most accurate in predicting the outcome last month in Indonesia. Scoop hopes that during this election we will gain a deeper understanding of when and why undecided voters are making decisions which are so important to all of us," says Scoop's Thompson.

In addition to providing the survey data that will be the basis of the Consortium’s analysis, Roy Morgan CEO, Michele Levine, will be participating in the Consortium as a commentator, feeding her extensive knowledge of current Australian politics into the mix.

"It is fascinating to watch how, across very different nations, very similar drivers of public opinion are hijacking the electoral agenda," says Ms Levine. "What we can learn during each election can help us to better understand what is happening in the next one in the rapidly evolving area of data science."

For the remainder of NZ Election Campaign Roy Morgan Research's always closely watched polls will be released via the NZ Election Data Consortium and made available for all NZ media to report on and analyse.

For Qrious's General Manager Cyrus Facciano the NZ Election Data Consortium was an opportunity too good to miss. Launched earlier this year by Spark Ventures Qrious is planning on becoming the dominant player in NZ's fast growing big-data management and analysis market.

"Few data based activities have as much profile as electoral polling in the lead up to a general election", says Facciano. "Working with the teams at Roy Morgan Research and Scoop will provide us with an opportunity to put our our data analysis platform and data scientists through their paces in the heat of what is shaping up to be a fascinating race."

"To our knowledge nobody has before gone about analysing an election in the manner contemplated by this Consortium approach so it was something we were very keen to be a part of," he says.

ElectionResults.co.nz has been launched today (Tuesday 19th August) with its live graphical interpretation of the iPredict prediction data and a "worst-case best-case" scenario analysis for the major parties which sets the scene for the contest ahead.

Coming soon will be the first look deep inside Roy Morgan's polling data focussing on understanding the makeup of the supporter base for each of the parties and starting to look at what is driving the critically important undecided voters.

"At present the bottom line in this electoral contest is that a swing of just few percent or an upset result in one of a handful of key seats could present NZ with either a very different government. And once again, just like they have been before, all eyes are on Winston," says NZ Election Data Consortium editor Ian Llewellyn.

Exceltium's Matthew Hooton, who was in the driving seat for the 2011 ElectionResults.co.nz debut, is similarly delighted to be on board the NZ Election Data Consortiumproject this year. "I always love elections, and this election is too close to call" he says. "The business community and the public want access to the best information about what the election result is likely to be, and with the inside access Roy Morgan Research is enabling via this consortium we will be able see what is going on in a manner we have never been able to before."

The data engineering between iPredict.co.nz and ElectionResults.co.nz was completed by Craig Pearson of Haunt Digital Limited, who has refreshed his highly successful work from the 2011 election. Haunt Digital will be web partner for the project.

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(NOTE: Media organisations who are interested in joining the NZ Election Data Consortium should contact NZ Election Data Consortium Editor Ian Llewellyn via editor@scoop.co..nz )

Additional Background On Consortium Participants

Scoop Independent News - scoop.co.nz

Scoop Independent News is the publisher of Scoop.co.nz, New Zealand's oldest and largest independent online news service. Scoop.co.nz reaches 300,000 unique NZ visitors monthly and publishes around 1000 news items every week including a live real-time feed of political news and reaction. The Scoop Media Cartel is a group of leading NZ current affairs blogs which Scoop works with including Russell PublicAddress.net, Pundit.co.nz and TheStandard.org.nz.

Roy Morgan Research - roymorgan.com

Roy Morgan Research is Australia’s best known and longest established market research company, with an unparalleled reputation for reliable, accurate, meaningful, revealing market research. Proudly independent, the Company now operates globally with offices in New Zealand, USA, UK, Indonesia and throughout Australia. See more here: roymorgan.com/about/about-roy-morgan-research

Qrious - qrious.co.nz

Information. Insight. Action. We are entering a new, more connected digital age, where innovation can flourish. Qrious is here to provide the platform and the capability to support this phenomenon, through better use of information to provide insights that are actionable.

iPredict - ipredict.co.nz

iPredict was established in 2008, shortly before the General Election that year, as a market-based political and economic forecasting system. iPredict was more accurate than 15 of the 19 polls published in the run up to the election that year - not bad for our first eight weeks in operation. iPredict Ltd is owned by Victoria Link Ltd, or “Viclink”, the commercial arm of Victoria University of Wellington. Its Board of Directors consists of Prof. Neil Quigley (Chairman), Prof. Lewis Evans and Ian MacIntosh.

Haunt Digital - hauntdigital.co.nz

Haunt Digital is a small experienced web development team. Haunt Digital brings together a range of complementary skills in programming, front-end development, design, testing, hosting and business/technical analysis under a lean, responsive, company structure.

Exceltium - exceltium.com

Founded in 2005, Exceltium provides government relations, public relations, iwi relations and communications advice and assistance to a number of prominent New Zealand and international companies. In addition, Exceltium assists a range of current and prospective local and international investors with their New Zealand interests. Led by Managing Director Matthew Hooton, Exceltium uses its combination of intellect, experience and networks to design strategy-led communications programmes that shift opinions and policies to support the business plans of our clients.

BusinessDesk - businessdesk.co.nz

BusinessDesk is New Zealand’s independent business news wire service, supplying business and economic news, including business-focused coverage of politics, for most New Zealand mainstream media and Australian Associated Press.

Roy Morgan Reactor - roymorgan.com/products/reactor

The world’s most advanced suite of research tools for measuring respondents’ continuous real-time responses. The Reactor is the original ‘Worm’ that has famously graphed viewers’ reactions to political debates over several decades and provided critical insights into the effectiveness of thousands of ads, programs and events, worldwide. By turning a dial or dragging the Reactor slider-bar on their computer, tablet or smartphone, respondents continuously score the program (according to specified criteria) and their reactions are averaged and graphed in real time. The audience reactions can be segmented and graphs (by age, gender, country etc) can be selected and displayed over the TV show as it goes to air.

Audiences can react from home (at a time they choose) with their smartphone using the Mobile Video Reactor App or with the Online Reactor on their computer. The program plays on their device while they react with their slider-bar. This is mostly used for testing ads, concepts and short program segments. Audiences in a studio or auditorium can all react in real time with theReactor Wireless Dials or the Mobile Reactor when the program is presented (usually on TV). This is mostly used for focus groups, adding audience involvement for events and live TV shows & conferences and for longer programs (like political debates).

The Mobile Reactor App enables anyone, anywhere to react , second-by-second, to any program. This is used more often for entertainment than pure research to add involvement and interactivity to live TV with the graphs of selectable audience segments superimposed over the program in real time. No other research technique can give you honest gut reaction like TheReactor.

Roy Morgan Helix Personas - helixpersonas.com.au

Helix Personas is a unique and powerful consumer segmentation and data integration tool that combines sophisticated psychographic and behavioural data to classify the Australian population into 56 Personas and 7 Communities using a combination of Roy Morgan Single Source data and third party data sources.

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