I’m Kevin McElligott, a market researcher with 12+ years in consumer and brand insights at Amazon, Meta, and Edelman. I’m now at a national digital health company, and I take on a small number of freelance projects for health and wellness brands and consumer startups.
Every engagement starts with a short call about the decision you’re facing. From there, the work usually takes one of these shapes.
I write the brief, design the questionnaire, manage fielding with a panel partner, weight and analyze the data, and deliver a readout a senior leader could present as-is. One person owns the study from start to finish.
A good fit if you have a decision coming and nobody in-house to run the research
Part-time research leadership for a team that isn’t ready for a full-time hire. I build the research roadmap, manage vendors, and make sure findings reach the people making the calls.
A good fit if you’re already paying for research and nobody owns it
A second set of eyes before money is spent or a number goes in a deck. I check questionnaires for leading questions, review vendor proposals, and tell you whether the sample can carry the claims being made from it.
A good fit if something about the data doesn’t sit right
Senior capacity for research agencies when the project list outgrows the team. I spent five years on the agency side before moving in-house, so I can work inside your process and run a study without much supervision.
A good fit if you need someone who can take a whole study off your plate
Most bad data starts with the questionnaire. I started out writing surveys for quick-turn agency studies and have designed them at every job since. I write questions people can answer honestly, screeners that keep the wrong respondents out, and a weighting plan that’s settled before fielding starts. I won’t write a leading question, even when someone would like a particular answer.
I built a 12-country brand and category equity tracker at Amazon and rebuilt the brand equity tracking system at my current company. A tracker is easy to launch and hard to keep honest. I design them so measures stay comparable wave to wave and a move is real before anyone reacts to it. Significance and sample sizes go on the chart itself.
I also run segmentation, MaxDiff and TURF, conjoint, regression, and message and creative testing. And I read the open-ends. Most people skim them, and a lot of the signal is there.
Digital health, consumer health, and pharma-adjacent companies. I’ve spent the last few years researching how people make decisions about their health, a subject where respondents are guarded and small wording choices change the answers.
Growth-stage companies without a research function yet. I help you write the first brief and set up a first tracker or segmentation so the numbers still hold when the company is much bigger.
Research and communications agencies that need a senior researcher when a project outgrows the team, or a specialist for tracking, segmentation, or choice modeling work.
You tell me about the decision you’re facing. I’ll tell you plainly whether research will help, and what kind.
We agree in writing on the decision it informs, the research questions, the audience, and your hypotheses, plus timeline and cost. Nothing gets fielded without one.
I check in at the moments where your input changes the outcome, like questionnaire sign-off and the first look at the data.
A deck a senior leader could present as-is. Each finding comes with its implication, and the caveats sit on the slide where people will see them.
I’m a senior market research manager at a national digital health company, where I lead full-cycle studies on consumer strategy and brand health and own the company’s brand equity tracking.
Before that, I spent two years at Meta researching how people see misinformation, privacy, and safety on the Facebook app, and two years at Amazon running its customer trust research program. I got my start on the agency side, where I spent five years writing surveys and running messaging and segmentation projects for clients, the last two at Edelman.
The test I hold my own work to is whether it travels. A study has done its job when people quote it in rooms I’m not in and other teams start pulling slides from it without asking. That only happens when the method is sound and the story is clear enough to repeat.
I have master’s degrees in international relations and public relations from Syracuse University, and I live in Arlington, Virginia.
Check what fits and your email app will open with a short note ready to send. Add a line about your timing and I’ll reply by email.
Prefer to write your own? Email hello@kevinmcelligott.com
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