LINK – Facts for better decisions
We provide facts. Our work leads to better decisions, always. We enthusiastically help companies and decision makers to understand markets and consumers in more depth. Whether it’s a traditional company, an authority or a startup – the LINK team is always the right partner. We listen, adopt an entrepreneurial perspective, and get actively involved: committed, competent, precise, reliable, and with a clear focus on quality and results. Thanks to our method knowledge, we obtain market data efficiently and effectively. We incorporate benchmarks, gain insights, and develop recommendations for action, hand in hand with our customers.
For over 40 years we have been conducting market and social research at the highest level.
The LINK Marketing Services AG is based in Lucerne and was founded by Joseph Stofer and Horst Heidemeyer in 1981. Innovation has always been our company’s main focus: In 1984, we were the first Swiss market research company to use an internally developed software for computer-assisted telephone interviewing. Another milestone in the history of LINK was the start of online surveys in 1998. As a pioneering company in Switzerland, we built an online panel recruited by telephone for this purpose, and conducted the first surveys via smartphone in 2011.
Continuous innovation at the cutting edge
Innovation continues to play a major role at LINK. In 2019, LINK introduced two digital products to the market: the Product Concept Test and the Municipality Check. The Predictive Promoter Score was also developed in 2019 and allows our customers to harness the power of artificial intelligence to learn more from customer feedback.
In 2021, we established two innovative products on the Swiss market. The license partnership with the agile end-to-end research tool quantilope enables the automation and flexible design of surveys for quick and particularly meaningful insights, while Swiss Brand Observer as a first ongoing marketing study always offers the latest insights into the consumer perceptions of 200 Swiss brands.
We’re devoted to the highest standards and results you can count on
We strive to make an increasingly complex world understandable for our customers and provide them with valid bases for their decisions through our rigorous analyses. In this way, we not only help companies and government offices in Switzerland but also give every citizen a voice that is actually heard. We offer our customers industry expertise, methodological knowledge, specialist knowledge, consulting, and project management experience and help them make better decisions through reliable data and insights.
LINK: A YouGov Company
In December 2021, we became part of the leading international business group YouGov and now market the globally popular data products Profiles, BrandIndex and Global Profiles. We can also draw on the YouGov panel and its more than 17 million panel members around the world. But our local expertise has not changed at all: The LINK panel remains separate from the YouGov panel and will continue to provide our clients with the largest and highest-quality survey pool in Switzerland. As part of the celebration of our 40th anniversary in 2021, we explored those characteristics that make Switzerland tick:
As part of our 40th-anniversary celebrations, we examined what makes Switzerland tick in 2021:
Timeline
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LINK in facts and figures
- Non-listed public limited company with headquarters in Lucerne and further offices in Zurich, Lausanne, and Lugano.
- Member of the Swiss Market and Social Research Association
- Employs a total of around 100 staff and around 500 part-time interviewers.
- Handles around 800 research projects, encodes around 1,300,000 lines of open questions, and records the results in over 12,000 PowerPoint slides every year.
- Online panel is the best in Switzerland with 115,000 panellists.
- CATI pool allows us to interview 500,000 people by telephone at any time.
- Conducts over 600,000 online interviews each year, totalling 8,000,000 minutes.
100
Employees
500
Interviewers
115,000
Online panellists
500,000
Persons on the CATI panel
The management of LINK
For our customers and employees, we as management want to continue successfully shaping LINK's history of development of over 40 years in the future, too.
Lukas Theiler
CEO
“Together with the YouGov Group, LINK stands for quality and innovation. I am proud of our many exciting customers and our great company culture; I enjoy the daily exchange with my many amazing colleagues.”
Master of Science in Computer Science and Psychology at the University of Fribourg. Research experience in the fields of artificial intelligence and computer vision.
In his various roles in IT engineering, consulting and management, he has always had a strong focus on customers, leadership, innovation, digital transformation and operational excellence.
Lukas Theiler
CEO
“Together with the YouGov Group, LINK stands for quality and innovation. I am proud of our many exciting customers and our great company culture; I enjoy the daily exchange with my many amazing colleagues.”
Master of Science in Computer Science and Psychology at the University of Fribourg. Research experience in the fields of artificial intelligence and computer vision.
In his various roles in IT engineering, consulting and management, he has always had a strong focus on customers, leadership, innovation, digital transformation and operational excellence.
Dr. Sabine Frenzel
Managing Director Social Research
“Big Data is on everyone’s lips and having a Data Lake seems to be good form. Making sense out of this flood of data is the real challenge, however. What could be more obvious than to ask the people behind the data and bring them to life – that is my passion and the claim of LINK as a whole.”
Master of Arts in English Language and Literature at the University of Mannheim and Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics at the Philipps University of Marburg. Already active on the institute side before joining LINK as Director Research and Consulting and a member of our management team.
Research experience includes the areas of media use; mobility and trend research on topics such as the sharing economy, autonomous driving, electric mobility; international opinion research with a focus on sustainability with regard to ecological, economic and social aspects.
Dr. Sabine Frenzel
Managing Director Social Research
“Big Data is on everyone’s lips and having a Data Lake seems to be good form. Making sense out of this flood of data is the real challenge, however. What could be more obvious than to ask the people behind the data and bring them to life – that is my passion and the claim of LINK as a whole.”
Master of Arts in English Language and Literature at the University of Mannheim and Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics at the Philipps University of Marburg. Already active on the institute side before joining LINK as Director Research and Consulting and a member of our management team.
Research experience includes the areas of media use; mobility and trend research on topics such as the sharing economy, autonomous driving, electric mobility; international opinion research with a focus on sustainability with regard to ecological, economic and social aspects.
Stefan Reiser
Managing Director Marketing Research
“When companies make better decisions with our support, we fulfil our purpose – my job is to create the conditions for this to happen.”
Diploma in Business Informatics with a focus on system development and database applications, marketing and statistics at the Otto-Friedrich-University Bamberg.
Even before joining LINK, he had already worked as a unit manager for marketing research and market intelligence professional on both the company and institute side. Research priorities are in the areas of customer experience, market and product potential analyses, employee engagement, product, price and advertising research, and visitor flow analyses. His experience includes B2B and B2C research, international projects, qualitative and quantitative methods and analytical studies.
Board member of the Swiss Data Insights Association (SWISS INSIGHTS).
Stefan Reiser
Managing Director Marketing Research
“When companies make better decisions with our support, we fulfil our purpose – my job is to create the conditions for this to happen.”
Diploma in Business Informatics with a focus on system development and database applications, marketing and statistics at the Otto-Friedrich-University Bamberg.
Even before joining LINK, he had already worked as a unit manager for marketing research and market intelligence professional on both the company and institute side. Research priorities are in the areas of customer experience, market and product potential analyses, employee engagement, product, price and advertising research, and visitor flow analyses. His experience includes B2B and B2C research, international projects, qualitative and quantitative methods and analytical studies.
Board member of the Swiss Data Insights Association (SWISS INSIGHTS).
Chris Kaiser
CFO
“The Finance division is responsible for sustainable value creation at LINK and therefore acts as a central partner for our customers, services and business units.”
Master of Science in Business and Economics at the University of Basel
In various functions in the strategic planning, finance and controlling, he focused on sustainable value creation, efficient resource allocation, and data-driven planning and company management respectively.
Chris Kaiser
CFO
“The Finance division is responsible for sustainable value creation at LINK and therefore acts as a central partner for our customers, services and business units.”
Master of Science in Business and Economics at the University of Basel
In various functions in the strategic planning, finance and controlling, he focused on sustainable value creation, efficient resource allocation, and data-driven planning and company management respectively.
