What Applied Marketing Science does

Applied Marketing Science, Inc. (AMS) is a privately held market research and consulting firm headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, founded in 1989 by MIT Sloan Professor John Hauser and Robert Klein (former Executive Vice President of Information Resources, Inc.). The firm operates two distinct practices under one corporate umbrella: the Insights for Innovation practice, delivered through ams-insights.com, which conducts Voice of the Customer programs, conjoint and discrete-choice analysis, pricing research, and innovation consulting for corporate clients in industrial, medical, financial, high tech, and consumer markets; and the Litigation Support practice, delivered through ams-litigation.com, which designs consumer surveys, supplies expert witness testimony, and provides rebuttal critiques for matters including trademark and trade dress infringement, deceptive advertising, class action issues, patent infringement, claim substantiation, and antitrust disputes. AMS serves clients in the United States and abroad (Latin America, Europe, Asia) on a project-based, professional services engagement model, with no publicly disclosed pricing.

The firm's methodology is anchored in MIT Sloan School of Management frameworks, supplemented by proprietary assets including the VOCALYST product, a custom-built online survey platform maintained in-house for 30 years, the FastPace adaptive conjoint analysis technique (winner of the 2003 John D. C. Little Award), and the RAPIDS sales force optimization tool. AMS holds ISO 27001 and ISO 27018 certifications for its Information Security Management System and maintains GDPR and CCPA compliance programs. Applied machine learning capabilities, developed in collaboration with MIT Sloan researchers, were validated by a 2023 Quirk's Marketing Research and Insight Excellence Award for a Boston Children's Hospital study; the firm's leadership has also publicly presented on generative AI applications in market research. Go-to-market is consultative and principal-led, supplemented by heavy conference participation (PDMA, INTA, Insights Association, TMRE, Intellus, Front End of Innovation), thought-leadership publishing, and academic affiliations with MIT, Yale, NYU, and Bentley. The firm is independently owned with no institutional investors or public listing disclosed.

Name

Applied Marketing Science

Legal name

Applied Marketing Science, Inc.

Website

https://ams-inc.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1989

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Applied Marketing Science is a privately held Burlington, Massachusetts-based market research and consulting firm founded in 1989 by MIT Sloan Professor John Hauser, operating two practices—Insights for Innovation and Litigation Support—delivering conjoint analysis, consumer surveys, expert witness testimony, and proprietary MIT-rooted methods to corporate clients and law firms across multiple industries worldwide.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Waltham

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Insights for Innovation consulting: Custom market research and consulting engagements for corporate clients in industrial, medical, financial, high tech, consumer and other markets. Engagements are project-based and led by principals and managers, covering Voice of the Customer programs, product development research, and customer experience design.
2. Litigation Support services: Consumer survey design/execution, expert witness testimony, rebuttal critiques, and deposition/trial preparation guidance for attorneys and courts in trademark, trade dress, deceptive advertising, class action, patent infringement, antitrust, and claim substantiation matters.
3. Training and coaching programs: Training and coaching programs that help clients develop in-house insights and Voice of the Customer (VOC) capabilities, delivered alongside consulting engagements.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Core offering

Applied Marketing Science, Inc. (AMS) is a market research and consulting firm based in Burlington, Massachusetts, founded in 1989. The firm operates two core practice areas: (1) Insights for Innovation, which conducts custom research and training using MIT Sloan School of Management methods to help clients develop innovative products and distinctive customer experiences, and (2) Litigation Support, which designs and executes consumer surveys and provides expert witness testimony for matters involving trademark/trade dress, deceptive advertising, class actions, patent infringement, antitrust, and claim substantiation. AMS also offers VOCALYST, a proprietary product developed by founder Robert Klein.

Product overview

Applied Marketing Science, Inc. (AMS) is a market research and consulting firm based in Burlington, Massachusetts, founded in 1989 by Professor John Hauser of the MIT Sloan School of Management. AMS operates as a unified firm offering two core service practices under one corporate umbrella: the Insights for Innovation practice (delivered through ams-insights.com) and the Litigation Support practice (delivered through ams-litigation.com). The Insights for Innovation practice conducts research and training to help clients create innovative products and distinctive customer experiences using methods developed at the MIT Sloan School of Management. The Litigation Support practice conducts consumer surveys and provides expert witness testimony for matters including trademark and trade dress infringement, deceptive advertising, class action issues, patent infringement, claim substantiation, and antitrust issues. AMS also offers VOCALYST, a proprietary product for which technical and marketing development was led by Founder and Chairman Emeritus Robert Klein. Together, the two practices and the VOCALYST product constitute AMS's portfolio of research, consulting, and expert witness offerings.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Insights for Innovation Custom market research and consulting practice serving industrial, medical, financial, high tech, consumer and other markets. Uses MIT Sloan School of Management methods (conjoint analysis, Voice of the Customer, discrete choice modeling) to help clients create innovative products and distinctive customer experiences, increase innovation success, and improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Litigation Support Consumer survey design and execution, expert witness testimony, rebuttal critiques, and deposition/trial preparation guidance for attorneys and courts. Covers trademark and trade dress infringement, deceptive advertising, class action issues, patent infringement, claim substantiation, and antitrust matters.
• VOCALYST Proprietary product developed by AMS for which Founder and Chairman Emeritus Robert Klein was responsible for technical and marketing development, positioned as part of the firm's innovation offering.
• Training and Coaching Programs Training and coaching programs that help clients develop in-house insights and Voice of the Customer (VOC) capabilities, delivered alongside consulting engagements.

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability4 records

Feature7 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• Ipsos: Global market research conglomerate with a sizable litigation support and public-sector research practice. Overlaps with AMS across both practice areas but operates at vastly greater scale and broader portfolio.
• Kantar: Global research and consulting giant offering brand, innovation, and litigation-related research services. Adjacent incumbent competing for the same Fortune 500 client budgets as AMS.

Direct peers

• Trial Behavior Consulting: Litigation-focused trial consulting and survey research firm offering expert witness services in IP and class action matters. Comparable to AMS Litigation Support in expert testimony and survey methodology.
• Radius Global Market Research: Mid-sized insights and strategy firm with strong conjoint and segmentation capabilities serving consumer and B2B markets. Directly comparable in offering mix and methodology orientation to AMS's Innovation practice.
• SKIM: Global market research and consulting firm specializing in conjoint analysis, discrete choice modeling, and pricing research with strong academic-methodology roots. Closely comparable to AMS's Insights for Innovation practice in methodology stack and client profile.
• Decision Analyst: U.S.-based marketing research and analytical consulting firm with a long-standing conjoint analysis practice and broad methodology toolkit. Directly comparable to AMS in offering quantitative innovation research for CPG and B2B clients.
• Westat: Employee-owned research firm combining large-scale survey research with litigation and survey methodology support for federal agencies and law firms. Comparable to AMS across both Insights and Litigation Support practices.
• Resolutions LLC: Litigation-focused market research and consulting firm providing expert survey research and testimony in trademark, false advertising, and class action matters. Direct overlap with AMS's Litigation Support practice in expert witness and survey design.
• Logica Research: Boutique quantitative market research consultancy serving legal, B2B, and consumer clients with survey design and analysis capabilities. Comparable in scale, methodology focus, and litigation exposure to AMS.

Emerging players

• Schlesinger Group: Data collection and qualitative research services firm supporting both corporate research and litigation survey work. Partial overlap with AMS's field operations and qualitative methodologies.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xtwitter.com/AMSInsights
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/applied-marketing-science

Compliance4 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles14 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Applied Marketing Science