Dutko Worldwide's communications and research unit, Strategy 360 mentioned in Roll Call : 09-25-2007 Pollsters: Lobbying’s Next Frontier September 25, 2007 By Kate Ackley, Roll Call Staff -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In rare cases, lobbying firms themselves have polling units, including Glover Park Group and Dutko Worldwide. Neither firm does much, if any, political polling. “The lobbying business has really changed a lot. It’s become a lot more sophisticated and competitive, and you need every kind of tool you can find,” said Gary Andres, who runs Dutko Research. “Polling and research has been a really effective advocacy tool. We use it a lot for background work for testing messages, to see which messages work well, to gauge the political implications of doing one thing versus another.” Andres said Dutko Research also uses polling to help bolster a corporation’s brand on Capitol Hill. Take client Erickson Retirement Communities. Erickson wants legislation to stimulate the development of electronic medical records. Andres and his four-person team at Dutko created questions to ask voters what they know about the topic and how concerned they were about privacy. “Then we organized a little conference on the Hill where we invited legislative assistants and committee staff who handled this, and we unveiled the poll,” Andres said. “It was a nice event, the way we weaved the polling information into it and used it as a way to brand this company as a thought leader on this issue.” View Article » Learn more about Gary Andres. »