Market Research Consulting Services in Australia

Australia Market Research Consultants

Australia is a vibrant hub where culture, innovation, and sharp business minds collide to shape a uniquely powerful research ecosystem. From the hustle of Sydney's business district to the innovation hubs of Melbourne and Brisbane, the country is rapidly becoming a global epicenter for insightful, data-led decision making. At the heart of this transformation is market research consultants, decoding consumer behavior, dissecting brand sentiment, and driving data-led growth across every industry imaginable.

From regional specialties in tourism, agriculture, and mining to sophisticated tech startup landscapes, Australian consultants don’t just follow trends; they shape them. That’s why at Digital Reference we decided it was time to highlight the absolute best in the business, and have curated a list of founders who are building the future of insights across the country.

Australia is home to some of the most innovative, insightful, and human-centric market research providers in the world. From coast to coast, these professionals don’t just collect data, they capture the soul of a region through the lens of its consumers, communities, and businesses. At Digital Reference, we’re powered by radical authenticity and unfiltered transparency, not just in hiring, but in how we champion exceptional service providers across industries.

💡 Looking for other leading consultants? Check out our feature on Top Market Research Services in the U.S. and the UK.

💡 Interested in key information necessary to succeed in the modern hiring process. Explore our guides to professional references and video resumes.

Let's meet the leaders behind Australia's top market research consultancies

JB Market Research Services

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Established in 1997, JB Market Research Services is a boutique research facility based in South Melbourne, specializing in high-quality focus group room facilities and project management for international clients. With strong networks across Australia, including major cities like Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth, JB offers extensive services ranging from traditional focus groups to virtual reality testing and mock retail environments.

• ✅ Offers extensive qualitative services including taste testing, usability testing, mock stores, and more
• ✅ Provides trusted project management for international clients with broad national networks
• ✅ Flexible, full-service support for unique and complex research needs

Let’s meet the founder, Maureen McCunnie

Maureen McCunnie is the founder of JB Market Research Services and a seasoned leader in the industry with over 20 years of experience. Known for her detail-oriented approach and commitment to client success, she has built one of Australia's most respected boutique research facilities. Her work spans international markets, managing end-to-end project delivery for major clients, and supporting innovative, often unconventional, research needs with professionalism and creativity.

• ✅ Over two decades of experience managing qualitative research projects across sectors
• ✅ Extensive international project management for clients like Ford and GHD
• ✅ Renowned for customer-centric service and agile solutions to complex research challenges

Lynnette Griffiths Market Research Services

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Lynnette Griffiths Market Research Services is a modern, boutique recruitment agency founded in 1991, serving metropolitan and regional Australia. The company specializes in recruiting respondents for a wide range of market research projects, including qualitative focus groups, quantitative interviews, advertising previews, and large-scale online surveys. Known for confidentiality and in-house recruitment, the agency leverages a large, annually renewed database and strong social media presence.

• ✅ Extensive respondent database covering Australia and New Zealand
• ✅ Recruitment for all market research genres, including online and face-to-face
• ✅ Strict confidentiality and no external contractors used

Let’s meet the founder, Lynnette Griffiths

Lynnette Griffiths has over 30 years of experience in market research recruitment and is a member of AMSRS/The Research Society. She personally manages all recruitment to ensure high-quality respondents perfectly matching project criteria. Lynnette’s strong social media following and wide networking help maintain an up-to-date and reliable respondent pool.

• ✅ Over 30 years of industry experience with professional accreditation
• ✅ Manages all recruitment personally, guaranteeing precise respondent matching
• ✅ Maintains a large social media network with 100,000+ followers and annual database renewal

THINK Global Research

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THINK Global Research is a market research agency that revolutionizes how insights drive business strategies. Combining traditional research techniques with a design thinking approach, THINK delivers deep customer understanding and actionable go-to-market strategies. Their collaborative, consultative style integrates findings directly into clients’ businesses, emphasizing ROI, strategic implementation, and interactive, engaging reporting. THINK uses both qualitative and quantitative methods and provides real-time, customized solutions tailored to unique business needs.

• ✅ Combines traditional and design thinking approaches for powerful insights
• ✅ Integrates research findings directly into client strategies with ROI focus
• ✅ Offers interactive, engaging reports and real-time data delivery

Let’s meet the founder, Kristy Ihle

Kristy Ihle is a behavioural scientist and clinical psychologist with 13 years of experience in clinical, organizational, and marketing research. She founded THINK Global Research to innovate market research methodologies using digital and interactive technologies such as virtual customer simulations and mobile research. Kristy’s expertise includes moderating over 200 focus groups, analyzing big data, and integrating qualitative and quantitative insights with a focus on delivering practical, evidence-based business solutions.

• ✅ Combines clinical psychology and behavioural science to enhance research impact
• ✅ Pioneers digital, interactive, and innovative research methodologies
• ✅ Specializes in big data analytics, integrating qual and quant insights for business outcomes

Honeycomb Strategy

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Honeycomb Strategy is a cutting-edge market research and customer insights agency that blends market research, behavioural science, and AI to accelerate business growth. Serving leading Australian and global technology, service, and retail brands, Honeycomb offers bespoke, innovative, and analytical solutions focused on product-market fit, go-to-market strategies, and brand challenges. Their expertise spans quantitative research, qualitative research, and behavioural science to deliver actionable insights tailored to today’s fast-paced market.

• ✅ Combines market research, behavioural science, and AI for strategic growth
• ✅ Provides bespoke, innovative, and analytical market research solutions
• ✅ Specializes in quantitative, qualitative research, and behavioural science

Let’s meet the founder, Renata Freund

Renata Freund is the Founder and Director of Honeycomb Strategy, leading an agency built for modern business needs. With a background in senior roles at Nature Research and Millward Brown, Renata brings extensive experience in delivering innovative and bespoke insights to top-tier Australian and global clients. Her leadership focuses on integrating behavioural science with traditional market research to solve complex brand and product challenges effectively.

• ✅ Founder and Director of a forward-thinking market research agency
• ✅ Experienced in delivering innovative insights to global technology and retail brands
• ✅ Skilled in combining behavioral science with market research to drive growth

Harvest Insights

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Harvest Insights specializes in delivering clear, consumer-centric insights to the FMCG/CPG and Retail industries. Their expert team utilizes an extensive qualitative and quantitative toolkit, including focus groups, ethnography, segmentation, advanced analytics, and in-house choice modelling, to support brand strategy, new product development, market sizing, and retail environment optimization. Harvest is committed to embracing diversity, shaping their research and thinking to challenge traditional perspectives and inspire innovative decision-making.

• ✅ Consumer insights expertise from ideation to advanced analytics
• ✅ Broad qualitative and quantitative research toolkit
• ✅ Focus on brand identity, product development, market sizing, and retail execution

Let’s meet the co-founders, Darrell Collins & Amy Tildesley

Darrell Collins brings 15 years of commercial research experience across the UK and Australia with a passion for food and beverage markets. Known as a compelling storyteller, Darrell excels at connecting shopper and consumer insights to drive disruptive product and service innovation. Amy Tildesley, an advanced analytics expert, co-founded Harvest Insights and is recognized on multiple prestigious lists including AFR’s Fast Starters. Amy combines brand strategy and consulting expertise with a passion for data-driven growth, helping clients navigate complex market challenges with precision and impact.

• ✅ Darrell Collins: Insights specialist with a food & beverage focus and storytelling prowess
• ✅ Amy Tildesley: Advanced analytics expert and acclaimed brand strategist
• ✅ Together, they co-lead Harvest Insights with complementary skills and a shared vision for consumer-centric innovation

Q&A Market Research

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Q&A Market Research is an independent, Australian-owned data collection and processing service provider operating nationwide. Their mission is to connect communities with research through safe, meaningful, and engaging participation experiences. Offering flexible, best-practice fieldwork services including CATI, online, face-to-face, qualitative recruitment, observational audits, and data processing, Q&A is equipped with extensive resources and technology to deliver agile and efficient solutions across Australia.

• ✅ Nationwide CATI, online, face-to-face, and qualitative recruitment services
• ✅ Extensive and experienced workforce with 130 CATI stations and 300 interviewers nationwide
• ✅ Specialized in audits, mystery shopping, traffic counts, and observational studies

Let’s meet the founder, Michael Harding

Michael Harding is the Managing Director of Q&A Market Research, bringing over two decades of leadership in data collection and research services. He combines deep industry expertise with a passion for leveraging research to drive meaningful business outcomes.

• ✅ Over 21 years leading Q&A Market Research, ensuring high-quality data collection and processing
• ✅ Skilled practitioner with extensive experience in market and social research fieldwork
• ✅ Committed to innovation and delivering actionable insights through powerful research methodologies

Sprout Strategy

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At Sprout, the focus is on transforming business through a deep understanding of the human story. They combine traditional research methods with cutting-edge approaches such as behavioral economics, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and social listening. Specialzsing in research, strategy, and design thinking, Sprout uncovers deep insights to design robust strategies and implement solutions that drive transformative growth.

• ✅ Combines traditional research with behavioural economics, neuroscience, AI, and social listening
• ✅ Specializes in research, strategy, and design thinking to drive growth and innovation
• ✅ Offers exclusive neuroscience tools like MindSight® in Australia and New Zealand

Let’s meet the founder, Elisa Adams

Elisa Adams is the founder of Sprout Strategy and a passionate behavioral science leader with over 30 years of experience studying Australians and consulting with some of the country’s largest organizations. She brings global insights and the latest thinking in research, strategy, behavioral science, and technology to Australia.

• ✅ Over 30 years of experience consulting with Australia’s largest organizations
• ✅ Brings global behavioral science and research expertise
• ✅ Founder of a tech-led, behaviural science-driven research and strategy consultancy

Veracity

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Veracity delivers clear, actionable answers to questions about consumers, advertising, marketing, and brand. Their approach makes research and strategy easy to manage, understand, and share within businesses. Key services include Advertising Performance, Marketing Effectiveness, Insights, Brand Development, Marketing and Advertising Strategy, and Customer Experience.

• ✅ Simplifies research and strategy to make them easily accessible to all users
• ✅ Specializes in advertising performance, marketing effectiveness, and customer experience
• ✅ Provides clear insights to support brand development and marketing strategy

Let’s meet the founder, Erin Core

Erin Core launched Veracity in 2020 to simplify consumer research and strategy into clear, actionable answers. With extensive experience across advertising campaigns, insights, creative strategy, and customer journey mapping, Erin supports marketing and product leads in making sense of insights and applying them effectively. She has worked with top Australian brands and her creative strategies have won multiple industry awards in positive and social change categories.

• ✅ Experienced in advertising campaigns, research, brand positioning, and customer journey mapping
• ✅ Supports marketing leads by simplifying insights and driving marketing effectiveness
• ✅ Award-winning strategist with multiple Effies and AMI Awards for creative campaigns

Metrix Consulting

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Metrix Consulting is an insights and strategy firm dedicated to connecting data from diverse sources to empower smarter marketing and business decisions. In today’s complex landscape, characterized by information overload, market disruption, and fragmented channels, Metrix helps clients see the full picture. This comprehensive perspective enables businesses to make informed, impactful decisions that drive results.

• ✅ Uses a ‘multi-lens’ approach to integrate data from multiple sources for a complete view
• ✅ Helps clients navigate complexity to make well-informed business and marketing decisions
• ✅ Award-winning consultancy with offices in Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney

Let’s meet the founder, Marquis Pohla

Marquis Pohla founded Metrix Consulting and has grown it from a small home-based operation into a thriving, multi-city business recognized for innovation and growth. Marquis is a strategic marketer and entrepreneur known for building strong client relationships, nurturing talent, and delivering exceptional results. He is also a respected mentor and leader within the business community, serving as Past President of the Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) Perth.

• ✅ Successfully scaled Metrix from a SOHO to an award-winning company with multiple offices
• ✅ Recognized for business growth and leadership, including Smart Company StartupSmart 50 and AFR Fast 100
• ✅ Passionate mentor and advocate for marketing’s role in solving tomorrow’s business challenges

Square Holes

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Square Holes helps leaders make smarter decisions through a deep understanding of people and culture. Partnering with government, business, and industry, they explore human behavior, test ideas, and monitor cultural and market shifts. Beyond data, their work unlocks insight to fuel confident, future-focused choices.

• ✅ Specializes in thriving businesses and flourishing cities, supporting innovation, communication, CX, and public services
• ✅ Combines cultural insights with behavioral science and tech-enabled methodologies for rich understanding
• ✅ Partners with a diverse range of clients from consumer brands to government, delivering actionable, long-term insights

Let’s meet the founder, Jason Dunstone

Jason Dunston is the founder and Managing Director of Square Holes, leading the company for over 20 years with a passion for “real people.” With a background in econometrics, psychology, and strategy, Jason has built a team delivering insights that drive growth for brands, businesses, and communities. Recognized as a Fellow of the Australian Research Society, he brings deep expertise in cultural insight, brand growth, B2B, education, and public sectors.

• ✅ Over 30 years of experience in market research, specializing in cultural and behavioral insights
• ✅ Has contributed extensively to arts and community projects through sponsorship and pro bono research
• ✅ Known as a mentor, innovator, writer, and presenter with a values-driven approach centered on curiosity and collaboration

The Future of Market Research in Australia

From boutique consultancies to national agencies, these leaders don’t just power decision-making, they redefine it. Each one is a reflection of what makes Australia’s insight economy so compelling: diversity, creativity, and relentless curiosity.

Here at Digital Reference, we’re proud to spotlight these visionaries. And as we revolutionize the talent ecosystem with tools that bring transparency and human nuance into hiring, we know that great insight drives great people and vice versa.

We’re committed to shining a light on the brightest minds in the industry, because at Digital Reference, we’re dedicated to creating a smarter, more transparent future for the world of work. Ready to join us? Get started here.