Ipsos and Kantar Alternative for a Fast Signal Before Fieldwork

Ipsos and Kantar have nothing left to prove when it comes to market research methodology. The question is not their rigor, but the moment when their format, quote, brief, fieldwork, reporting, genuinely fits the need, and the moment it slows down a decision that could move faster.

What legacy agencies bring

Ipsos is a global research group, known for consumer research and opinion polling, which emphasizes large online access panels with declarative profiles to build samples targeted by sector. Kantar is a data, insights, and consulting company, running six proprietary "Premium" panels with a presence in roughly a hundred markets, and advanced panel management.

Both share solid common ground: proprietary panelist networks built up over years, proven methodology, strong geographic and sector coverage. These are real strengths for studies that demand fine grained representativeness on a complex or poorly documented market.

The trade off: operating in agency mode

That level of rigor comes with a counterpart: Ipsos and Kantar operate in agency mode, with a quote, a detailed brief, a fieldwork phase, then reporting. That way of working follows the same order of magnitude as the traditional research market: generally 15,000 to 50,000 dollars for a custom study depending on scope, and a 4 to 12 week timeline between brief and deliverable, even longer across several markets since fieldwork runs market by market before cross market analysis.

What Panelia brings upstream

Panelia is not meant to replace a proprietary panel built over years, nor a sector methodology proven on complex markets. The tool answers a different, earlier need: getting a first measured signal on a concept, price, or message before even knowing whether the topic justifies a full study. You describe the concept, and hundreds of synthetic respondents answer within minutes, with a purchase intent distribution, a confidence interval, verbatims, and an executive summary, calibrated using a method published on arXiv (identifier 2510.08338) against real human data.

The result arrives in roughly 10 minutes, at a cost of around one euro, letting you test several hypotheses before committing to the one worth a heavier investment.

Using both, in the right order

A realistic use often combines both: a quick test with a synthetic panel to eliminate the weaker hypotheses and refine the concept, then, if the stakes justify it, a deeper study with an agency like Ipsos or Kantar for the final decision on a complex market. That avoids spending an agency budget on a hypothesis that would not have survived a first quick filter.

In practice

If the need at hand is a fast signal to decide between several options before committing an agency budget, testing with a synthetic panel changes the order of operations without undermining the value of fieldwork research when it is genuinely needed.