Our Services

Consumer Insights and Innovation

Insights Fuel Our Strategies

At McMillanDoolittle, we believe there are no average retailers, and that ultimately, the winners base their direction on consumers. Our talented team of researchers excels at timely and relevant consumer insights developed through creative and pragmatic research that aligns strategy and positioning with successful execution.

We work closely with clients to identify insights-powered opportunities for innovation within the digital and physical space and execute winning experiences in the ever-changing retail landscape. Our team harnesses forward-thinking approaches to deliver differentiated products, services, and experiences; develop and refine winning go-to-market strategies; and provide customer-centric solutions targeting competitive whitespace.

Consumer
Insights

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Our Consumer Insights Offering:

We utilize multiple research methods to engage consumers and distill actionable insights that underlie our retail and brand strategies:

Quantitative Research: We engage consumers at scale through robust, bespoke quantitative survey-based research, including advanced methods, such as concept screening, consumer segmentation, pricing analysis and brand health tracking.
Shopper Research: We utilize store exit interviews, shop-along interviews, and ethnography to observe shopper behavior and start a conversation when feedback is truly top of mind, shedding light on consumer behaviors and belief systems at the moment of truth.
Qualitative Research: Our qualitative research provides an opportunity to get closer to consumers, deeply discussing new ideas and concepts. We design and moderate interactive consumer, associate, and expert focus groups, in-depth interviews, bulletin boards, and digital diaries.
Social and Online Listening: We distill insights from big data on digital channels to better understand consumers’ unprompted feedback.

We believe it’s time for all brands and retailers to rethink their strategy and rethink their business to shift to what today and tomorrow’s consumers want.

Our Approach to Brand Positioning and Innovation:

We leverage insights to reimagine the future of retail by inspiring teams and clients to address people’s needs through innovative solutions that work. Our adaptable framework guides clients from insights to exploration, prioritization, and optimization.

1. Discover: Where are we today?
  - Driven by curiosity, we delve deep into understanding the current state of your brand and retail landscape. As seasoned outside-in experts, we employ personalized methodologies such as positioning frameworks, benchmarking, and our primary consumer insights capabilities to immerse ourselves in the opportunity space.
2. Imagine: Where should we go?
  - Drawing on our extensive retail experience, we engage in ideation for the future state. Through tailored workshops and co-creation sessions, we actively involve our clients and consumers to generate desirable, viable, data-driven solutions and white space mapping.
3. Build: How do we get there?
  - We craft clarity and develop coherent, actionable plans, precepts, concepts and roadmaps that transform breakthrough ideas into reality. Our approach includes considering future trends and potential industry disruptions and collaborating to create iterative, testable concept options and prototypes.
4. Implement: Let’s deliver results.
  - Relentless in unlocking potential for our clients, we support our clients in implementing highly personalized solutions and pilots with high probability results. Our commitment to our clients is to deliver tangible outcomes that make a lasting impact.

We assist clients in transforming alongside their evolving customer bases by defining the future, delivering valuable services, and driving meaningful and measurable outcomes.

Our Services

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STRATEGIC PLANNING
Personalized guidance from inspiration to implementation to impact.

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CONCEPT AND CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE DEVELOPMENT
Big ideas dreamed, tested and built around your goals.

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BUSINESS PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT
Optimized operation driving physical and digital channel success and management momentum you can measure.

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CONSUMER INSIGHTS AND INNOVATION
Understanding customers and shaping a physical and digital customer journey that reinforces your brand.

RETAIL INTELLIGENCE AND INVESTOR SERVICES
Invaluable knowledge and insights from true retail experts.

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
Digital strategy experience with a keen eye on the future of retail.