Company founders Mark Penn and Douglas Schoen met at the Horace Mann prep school, where they were both students,[1] and they later attended Harvard University together.
[3] In 1977, Penn and Schoen were hired by consultant David Garth to carry out polling for Ed Koch's campaign for mayor of New York City.
[4][5] The company introduced overnight tracking polls and computer analysis of results, which informed the campaign's media strategy and helped Koch win the election.
[6][8] According to the New York Times, the firm's use of computerized polling analysis and specialized personnel for direct-mail were key innovations in political campaigns of the period.
[2][12] For the firm's work on the 1996 election, Time magazine dubbed Penn and Schoen "Masters of the Message" in an article focused on the campaign and their influence.
As part of services provided by the firm, Penn became Clinton's communications adviser, employing a team of 20 employees to carry out the routine campaign work.
[25][4] In April 2008, it was disclosed that, in his role as chief executive of Burson-Marsteller, Penn had met Colombian government representatives to discuss promoting a free-trade agreement opposed by Clinton.
Schoen stated that he believed the referendum "was a massive fraud" and Penn noted that PSB's two previous exit polls in Venezuela had correctly predicted the final results.
[27] The results of the referendum were endorsed by César Gaviria, secretary general of the Organization of American States, and former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, who monitored the vote.
According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, because the chance of sample error in the exit poll was so low and observers did not find any signs of fraud, it may have been the survey's methodology that led to the discrepancy in results.
[31] The polls found that the majority of voters disapproved of Milosevic's performance and wanted him to resign, supporting the view held in the U.S. that he was unlikely to win re-election.
The firm carried out three waves of polling, including over three hundred thousand interviews, to generate a campaign strategy to win the mandate of the people of India to form the government.
[citation needed] PSB's corporate work has focused on leveraging the experience gained in political campaigns to guide its research, advice, and communications for numerous Fortune 500 companies.
[11] Penn advised Bill Gates on the campaign to prevent Microsoft from being broken up, which was mandated by the 2000 court decision in the anti-trust case brought by the U.S. Justice Department.
[39] In 2004, PSB carried out research for McDonald's in the UK when the fast food company was concerned about negative public opinion following the release of the film Super Size Me.
A 2009 PSB poll to support Ford's sales case for built-in electronics found that 93 percent of those surveyed agree with the idea of a nationwide ban on texting while driving.
[44] In 2010, Ford introduced technology to allow parents to prevent teenage drivers from listening to explicit radio content based on PSB survey data.
[50][51] The following year, the company conducted polls on Americans' attitudes towards the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act which was commissioned by The Atlantic and the Aspen Institute.