Manfred Güllner is stepping down from the day‑to‑day operations of Forsa, the market‑ and opinion‑research firm he founded in 1984. “The main reason for my withdrawal is that I can’t push biology out of the way” Güllner told the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”. “It’s like an old car: some parts rust while the engine still runs”.
Leaving is hard for him, a sentiment echoed by a former North Rhine‑Westphalia state parliament president who once remarked, “Güllner turned his hobby into a profession”. Nonetheless, he will still receive the institute’s nightly data on public sentiment and will use the information to advise Forsa’s management on political and electoral research. He will also keep his newsletter going and will be available to the media when he has reliable data to offer meaningful commentary.
Güllner expressed shock and concern at the careless and irresponsible use of survey data by many media outlets and politicians today. He warned of an increasing number of “black sheep” in the industry that produce unreliable results that rarely match reality, often in opaque ways.
When asked whether market research-the “cash cow” of demography-will eventually become obsolete because tech giants such as Amazon, Google, or Meta now know far more about people’s habits, Güllner replied that some had dreamed of this for a long time. “But if there’s no interpretive framework for those vast data sets, they are essentially useless” he said. He added that it is inevitable to ask people for the reasons behind their views and decisions – the “why” – and that the results of such primary polls must be interpreted in context with other available data.
