Focus groups are being declared useless or obsolete all over the place these days. They aren't really obsolete or useless -- what is happening is that the focus group is simply taking its place as one tool among many to understand customers and trends.
The latest article was in the New York Times, Agencies Look Beyond Focus Groups to Spot Trends.
Leading advertising agencies such as Leo Burnett and DDB are trying new approaches to gathering trend indicators. For example, the article reports that Leo Burnett recently surveyed taxi drivers in ten Asian cities to get their views on effects of rapid economic development.
Eva Steensig, a sociologist at DDB spoke about their new strategy of collecting market intelligence from their employees' observations worldwide, a program they call SignBank. I thought that was also a really interesting idea, and a great way to leverage the insights of your staff at all levels. But then she said this:
"Focus groups confirm what you already know... Talking about toilet paper for two hours in a room doesn't really help."
The author went on to say this:
The problem, Ms. Steensig said, is that most consumers are not experts on their own consumption patterns. They have other things to worry about - their families, or the weather. So in focus groups they are easily led and rarely come up with the kinds of original insights that a marketer needs to stay ahead.
Is surveying taxi drivers better than a focus group?
Let's start with the taxi drivers. Do you think this was really a survey, as reported here, or was it more likely a qualitative interview,
where someone like me, or perhaps an anthropologiest, asked a ton of
open-ended questions and pursued every interesting avenue that came up
in the discussion? Because if it was a survey, I'm doubtful that new
insights were obtained -- surveys aren't a great way of finding new insights. Surveys help you
test hypotheses you already have, uncover new relationships in data, determine how many people share a certain view or habit, and describe segments. The best surveys build on insights gathered using qualitative methods.
I've met a lot of taxi drivers, and I don't think they have any special insights into humanity. They do meet a lot of people, and can comment on what they see around them. To make that process useful, the person asking the questions and making meaning of the answers is probably bringing a fair bit of art to the process.
Do Focus Groups Just Confirm What You Already Know?
Only really awful focus groups. If that's all you are getting, you are wasting your money. You could get so much more.
What Ms. Steensig said is partly true: consumers are not experts on their own consumption patterns. If you want consumption patterns, you get shopping data from AC Nielson or a competitor. Or you ask people to keep a consumption diary. You study your own sales data. There are many methods.
After you have the consumption patterns, then you talk to people. You talk to them to find out their goals, their feelings, their dreams, their hopes, their joys, their frustrations, their worries, their plans, their perceptions, their problems. Consumers are very much experts about those topics. Especially if you ask the right questions in the right way, and then listen carefully.
I also agree with Ms. Steensig that a discussion can be led in a biased direction, which can certainly happen when an unskilled person is leading the discussion, or if the client pushes hard enough for this outcome. All methods of inquiry have bias, even the best survey or interview. The key is to understand that principle and actively manage the bias.
What Really is Wrong with the Focus Group?
Actually, not that much, when used properly. The focus group was
responsible for gazillions of insights that have improved all our lives
in the past fifty years or so. However the term itself has become imprecise and almost meaningless outside the professional research community. [Not unlike business process reeningeering, change management, and executive coaching -- other terms that are used liberally by all and sundry].
The focus group is not the only tool, and not even the only tool available for qualitative insights.
Just like a construction project, you need the right tool for the job. But even the right tool, in unskilled hands, will not build you a house.
Acknowledgements:
The cartoon came from Web Flyer, who have a number of interesting looking postcards available to send by e-mail.
