Léger (company)

Léger is the largest Canadian-owned polling and market research firm with 600 employees.[1] The company was founded in 1986 by former Minister of the Environment Marcel Léger, and was originally known as "Léger & Léger" (1986–1996) and "Leger Marketing" (1996–2013).[2] It is now led by his son, Jean-Marc Léger, President.

The firm is headquartered in Montreal, with offices in Toronto, Quebec City, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, and Vancouver in Canada, and Philadelphia in the United States.[3] To date, Leger has acquired 10 companies.[4]

In 1995, Léger & Léger repositioned itself in marketing research and became Léger Marketing.[5] In 2000, the polling firm announced the acquisition of Criterion Research Corporation of Toronto. It then expanded its tentacles westward with the acquisition of Criterion (Edmonton) in 2005 and Claros Research (Calgary) in 2006.[6]

In 2005, Leger conducted the first online surveys in Canada with its Leger Web division.[7]

In 2007, Leger Marketing entered the American market by acquiring ARC Research, a Philadelphia-based firm.[8]

In 2010, Jean-Marc Léger became founding president of WIN, a worldwide association of polling firms that includes 75 major independent research firms from 73 countries.[9] After making several acquisitions to provide Léger Marketing with the technological innovations needed to raise the Quebec company to a world-class position, its founder Jean-Marc Léger feels ready to take the next step: Léger Marketing becomes Léger (Research - Strategy - Consulting) and expands its offer in strategic consulting and advanced statistical analysis.[10]

In 2012, Léger became a majority shareholder in Agility Metrics, a Montreal-based company built around a cloud computing application for measuring customer experience.[11] Agility Metrics later became Léger Metrics.[12] 14 In the same year, Léger - Recherche Stratégie Conseil announced that it had acquired Researchology, a Toronto-based marketing research firm specializing in pharmaceutical research.[13] In 2013, Léger acquired Ifop North America (located in Toronto), with its unique marketing research expertise in the pharmaceutical and consumer goods sectors.[14]

In 2014, Léger became a minority shareholder and strategic partner of imarklab, positioned as the Canadian leader in interactive marketing intelligence.[15] By combining traditional marketing research efforts with neuroscience, the imarklab-Léger partnership facilitates better understanding and intervention on customer behaviour across multiple channels of commerce.

In 2018, Léger launched its Leger Analytiques division.[16] In 2019, Leger completed the acquisition of Vancouver-based National Research Group (NRG), the largest company in Western Canada with offices in Vancouver, Calgary, and Winnipeg. In the same year, Legerweb becomes LEO (Leger Opinion), the largest Canadian online panel with over 400,000 panelists.[17]

After completing nine acquisitions, Leger has become over the years the largest Canadian-owned marketing research and survey company, with 600 employees in its offices in Montreal, Toronto, Quebec. Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver in Canada, and Philadelphia in the United States.[18]