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WHY THE 'F' IN FOCUS GROUPS OFTEN STANDS FOR FLAWS

Guest post by: Billy Sharma

Article Overview: Looking at your customers through a one-way mirror is not the best way to understand them. Nor is a summary of market analysis through someone else's eyes the right way to know how your target audience will react in the real world.

WHY THE 'F' IN FOCUS GROUPS OFTEN STANDS FOR FLAWS

It is not unusual to attend a seminar, where a thirty-something year old male or female in a high executive position, will rattle of statistics from quantitative attitudinal research and focus group findings.

Traditional marketers who rely too heavily on focus groups and research should beware of one thing, often the candidates in focus groups may say one thing but act quite differently when they are buying or responding in the real world.

Coke discovered this fact the hard way when they conducted focus groups taste tests. The people participating all said that they preferred the "New Coke" and would definitely buy it too. We all know what happened that time.

Similarly, RC Cola has conducted innumerable taste tests in which participants have each time reported that they preferred RC Cola, to both Pepsi and Coke and yet RC Cola has only a very small market share and ranks No. 5, well below even Dr. Pepper and Cott's Cola.

I remember attending many focus groups in the USA, in the early '80s while I was working for the Canadian Government on the Tourism Account. Almost all of the focus group participants, when asked which magazine they had looked at recently, indicated only upscale magazines like National Geographic or Harper's Bazaar.

Not one of the people mentioned Playboy or Hustler, which had more than triple the readership of National Geographic and Harper's combined at that time.

Ironically, when probed not one person in the focus group could even recall a single recent article from National Geographic or Harper's Bazaar.

Were these people lying? Actually they were, but only because they wanted to come off as smarter.

We all know that many factors affect the response of people in focus groups, from peer pressure to the need to conform to the group or to demonstrate that they are different.

Looking at your customers through a one-way mirror is not the best way to understand them. Nor is a summary of market analysis through someone else's eyes the right way to know how your target audience will react in the real world.

Remember the old party game, where you sat in a circle and you repeated a message that you heard from one person on one side of you to the next person on your other side. They then whispered the same message to the person next to them, only to discover that it had been hilariously distorted by the time it had gone through a full cycle of everyone in the circle.

Marketing data can, in the same way, lose its main message because of filters that are usually subtle but are still capable of altering or distorting the real truth.

Don't get me wrong; I am not making an argument against focus groups, I am simply trying to make sure we learn to read our customers accurately. Our business is one-to-one marketing.

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Related Forum Posts
Re: Great start, but no finish - My advise is FOCUS on your business. Focusing is the main factor to succeed on business. If you have a great idea, then follow it only, don't look anywhere else. It is especially essential in an online business. Because there are a lot of mind blowing sales letters promising millions dolllars or overnight success, people find it difficult to concentrate on one business and they lose their energy. Concept is simple. 1- Have a good idea; 2- Build your business on it; 3- Monetize your business; 4- Promote it; 5- Build list of responsive customers; 6- Maintain You Business. Focusing and not fearing from competition (instead you can learn from competitiors) are main tips of billionaires ,BTW. Orxan
How do you know if you have a good idea? - [quote="orxan":3118uboz]My advise is FOCUS on your business. Focusing is the main factor to succeed on business. If you have a great idea, then follow it only, don't look anywhere else. It is especially essential in an online business. Because there are a lot of mind blowing sales letters promising millions dolllars or overnight success, people find it difficult to concentrate on one business and they lose their energy. Concept is simple. 1- Have a good idea; 2- Build your business on it; 3- Monetize your business; 4- Promote it; 5- Build list of responsive customers; 6- Maintain You Business. Focusing and not fearing from competition (instead you can learn from competitiors) are main tips of billionaires ,BTW. Orxan[/quote:3118uboz] Thanks orxan! But how do you know if you truly have a good idea or not? If we ask ourselves, we may be suffering from tunnel vision. On the other hand, friends/family may try to discourage us from pursuing a small business because of their own fears, while others will simply give us an empty "you can do it!" line.


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