For the past 20 years, the Erdos & Morgan Opinion Leaders Study has measured contemporary issue involvement and traditional media (print/broadcast) influences. It is the best-known and most widely used survey of thought leaders in the U.S.

Now Erdos & Morgan has expanded its franchise to provide digital media a benchmark on which they can present themselves on an equal footing to traditional media in reaching America’s Opinion Leaders.

Opinion Leaders Digital:

• Provides marketers with measures of the personal and professional involvement of prominent Americans in contemporary issues.
• Furnishes advertisers and advertising agencies with measurements of the reach and influence of digital media serving the Opinion Leader marketplace.
• Provides digital media with data and opportunities to sell their products and services to marketers and advertising agencies.

The study was conducted during June and July of 2008 among respondents to the traditional Opinion Leaders study. In total, 859 questionnaires were returned either through the mail or online, representing a 57.8% response rate.

The universe for Opinion Leaders Digital is 303,368, which reflects the entire Opinion Leader universe. All leadership groups are represented:

• Public sector includes: Congressional and executive branch, state, city and local government officials.
• Private sector includes: Association leaders, leaders from business, communications and media, education, law, healthcare and science.

In addition to measuring the Web sites of the media brands currently studied in the traditional Opinion Leaders Study, digital only sites were also measured. All 175 issues, ranging across such diverse topics as governmental self-regulation, the environment, consumer protection, healthcare, drug policy, international trade, crime and a host of other topics can be analyzed and examined based on the reach of these Web sites.