Company Overview

Critical Insights is a strategic market research firm based in Portland, Maine, but serving a national client base.

The firm was founded in 1992 by MaryEllen FitzGerald, a behavioral scientist with over twenty years of experience documenting and interpreting the perceptions and attitudes of consumers, corporate decision makers, and the general public.

Since its founding, the company has grown to become a full-service research firm, offering its clients assistance in all aspects of marketing research – both qualitative and quantitative – from problem definition through analyses, reporting and implementation of results.

Critical Insights has assembled a team of research professionals who bring a superior standard of experience and achievement to all assignments undertaken by the company. The staff’s areas of expertise include extensive experience in research-based strategy development and decision-making, as well as aiding in the strategic development and diagnostic testing of award winning branding efforts and communications strategies.

Unlike other research suppliers of its size, the company has established its own telephone interviewing and web-based data collection facility, the Critical Insights Information Center. The Center’s call center hosts thirty computer-assisted interviewing (CATI) stations in order to guarantee our clients that all telephone-based interviewing is done on-site and under professional conditions by researchers who are trained and skilled in the art of interview procedures and accurate data capture.

Our web survey division within the Critical Insights Information Center, Critical Insights Interactive (cisurveys.com), was formed in 2001 in direct response to client demand for high quality Internet-based data collection surveys. Programming, page design and data collection is handled in-house.

Critical Insights has developed an extensive local, regional and national client base that includes a number of Maine, New England and national marketing communications and advertising agencies, as well as numerous clients in the fields of healthcare, insurance, financial services and technology. The common denominator for these clients is their demand for cutting-edge techniques, for strategic insights that drive effective decision-making.

Consistent with the varying needs of our client base, the firm maintains appropriate flexibility to accommodate (often simultaneously) both large-scale assignments and smaller, "quick turn-around" engagements.