A Right Brain Approach to Focus Groups

1. We will be in the mental health profession, not the marketing business.
Focus groups are like marriage counseling. You want to sell, consumers need it, but poor communication and lack of understanding can stop a procurement dead in its tracks similarily they are able to undermine relationships. The idea would be to tear down barriers and identify shared values and mutually supportive behaviors. As in therapy, respondents come to focus groups to be heard, not just for your financial incentive. Life is tough and quite a few folks have few outlets to vent. Maybe they've just result from work where bosses, customers and co-workers made unreasonable (as they perceive them) demands all day every day. Perhaps they have nagging partners or out of control kids at home. Not to mention the daily bombardment of one-way communications, the commercial messages they can't help but see everywhere they appear.
Focus groups are their time. Discussion guides need to get well planned, but there are immense great things about "letting go" every now and then. Allowing respondents to babble every now and then presents an unparalleled possibility to experience meaningful human moments. Understanding who your respondents are really and your brand's role inside their lives is when qualitative really shines.
Consumer thought processes usually are not linear, and great focus groups don't always need to become either.
2. It's a trip, not a destination.
Just as no-one gets "fixed" in therapy, no less than not for a while, it can be unrealistic and counterproductive to expect to find "the answer" in focus groups.
"Validation," or "the winning concept" isn't what we are looking for here. We work in a risky business, still more art than science. And without conflict and ambiguity, there would be no art.
One can scan the Cliff Notes for "The Brothers Karamazov," but true appreciation could only are derived from diving in and wrestling using the great issues of the human condition represented on this long book.
In art, as in life, sharply contrasting beliefs can be equally important and equally valid. In both cases, the answers, in and also themselves, are shallow without the insights and understanding that support them.
It's the wrestling, your way, the struggle that matters.
Focus groups will be the marketing equivalent of this technique. A great intellectual and inventive adventure where spontaneity and unexpected twists make everything all the more rewarding along with the insights that emerge so much more valuable.
The renowned David Ogilvy quote on research can not be cited too many times.
"I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to work with judgment; they may be visiting rely a lot of on research, and they also put it to use like a drunkard uses a lamp post for support, rather than for illumination."
Ideas and solutions don't come from focus groups or any research. They result from folks who suffer from thought and felt deeply.
When approached because this "journey" or intellectual struggle, the main focus group process provides incredibly rich food for thought, in the role of the muse for smart, creative marketers to wrestle with and develop their ideas.
3. Be Honest
Qualitative scientific studies are time for creativity and open-mindedness. It just isn't about forcing our opinions (or ads, logos and new product concepts) along the throats individuals target consumers. It is about accepting responsibility rather than assigning blame.
How more often than not have we heard the advertising agency art director, observing inside back room, say, "Those respondents can be extremely stupid. They don't obtain the work."
It isn't about us as marketers. It's about them as consumers. What we think is irrelevant inside the long term, and the more defensive were, the harder we try to rationalize past decisions, the deeper we dig ourselves right into a hole.
Given internal corporate politics as well as a hostile financial state that breeds job insecurity, it's not easy for individuals to become honest with each other and ourselves. If something isn't working, we need to adjust our approach.
As Albert Einstein once said, "If we knew exactly what it was we had arrived doing, it would not be called research, would it?"
In the end, honesty - and humility - will probably pay off handsomely.
4. If it comfortable to wear you're probably on something.
When the fantastic Louis Armstrong used to be inspired to define jazz, he replied, "If you must ask, you may never know."
Like a mesmerizing Armstrong improvisation or Ella's scat singing, great marketing arises from the soul. True, we are commercial marketers first, not artists, but to minimize the influence of art and emotion and only an overly analytic approach may be a fatal mistake.
Bonds between brands in addition to their people are just like how any art connects with its audience. Legendary brands are made with vision and inspiration, never with research.
But qualitative research, and concentrate groups particularly, present an original possibility to feel our way through works beginning even as we will be in as soon as with target consumers and our professional colleagues.
5. Nothing is much more important than great stimulus.
Focus groups can be like the existing saw about computers. Garbage in, garbage out.  customer satisfaction research Perth  know very well what that like and what they need, but can't always articulate their feelings. We need to provide them with all the tools, or vocabulary, to speak about these complex emotions.
Therefore, whenever exploring a awesome concept, positioning, communications alternatives or virtually any innovation, it is essential to present a variety of single-minded positioning concepts. Putting "stakes inside the ground" has an excellent starting place for meaningful, articulate discussion with respondents.
6. Put respondents to operate and get them of the "Critic's Chair."
Getting respondents involved in exercises immediately, even something as simple like a brand sort, helps buy them going. The goal is to get respondents talking, preferably to each other, instead of answering "yes" or "no" questions posed by the moderator.
This direct involvement grows exponentially in importance when exploring concepts.
A common complaint about focus groups is when easily they seem to rework consumers into know-it-all marketing critics. This should be no surprise. Handing out concepts for respondents to mark up or reading concepts one-by-one for group feedback is definitely an invitation to keep forth about the dos and don'ts of marketing.
This pitfall exists it doesn't matter how skilled the moderator, how well the guide is crafted or how fabulous the stimulus could possibly be. Respondents might be instructed in greater detail to convey feelings, not judgments, to focus about the big picture and not the minutia, but by enough time the second or third concept arises for discussion, most have become judge and jury, confidently predicting that "people will (or won't) like this one."
Consider instead a workshop approach, where a band of eight might be split into "teams" of 4. They are given a packet of concepts, anywhere from five to ten or maybe more, after which arrested for choosing the one or two most motivating concepts and bringing them to life.
We can ask the crooks to name products, design packages, write commercials, select a spokesperson that best personifies the product, or another amount of things.
A great deal of nutrients happen with this particular approach. Most importantly, when respondents are deeply engaged with this challenge (that they appear to relish), they become passionate participants using a stake within the process, not aloof critics.
As they talk to one another and think aloud, first as they feel their way through the concepts then bring them their favorites your, we have been able to take notice of the consumer way of thinking up close and personal. The ultimate output from the creative exercise is just not important, and expectations should not be loaded with that regard. But the example of this psychological and creative journey is invaluable.
This approach also removes the temptation to "keep score." If we test ten concepts, two of them show remarkable promise nevertheless the other eight are laughed out in the room, performs this connote failure? Or if ten of ten are received positively, is always that an unqualified success?
Absolutely not. Depth of understanding and direction include the secrets of great focus groups, not an unquantifiable scorecard.
7. Adapt Proactively
Unlike quantitative research, focus groups are a live, ongoing experience that could work for a day, a week or more. This provides the possibility to evolve, to absorb, consider, and adapt. The discussion guide and stimuli need to be reexamined after on a daily basis of research. Inaction and static thinking will be the enemies. "Keeping everything exactly the same so we can compare apples and apples" doesn't hold water. Best to push your thinking, aggressively. You can always maintain your "old" concepts in your back pocket for your next industry for a real possibility check or the apples to apples comparison, when you are ready with a new challenge that reflects understanding how to date will maximize the value from the research.
8. Embrace the shared experience to create consensus.
Focus groups certainly are a highly social, shared experience. This isn't merely a metaphorical journey, but a true one. Together, we hang out in airports drinking coffee desperately seeking Internet connections, fly from city to city, stuff ourselves with junk food inside the back rooms of research facilities and have drinks in the hotel bar when it's all over each night.
The stated purpose with the journey would be to interact with consumers, nevertheless the possibility to talk with our colleagues is essential.
Selling a perception internally is frequently a great deal more difficult than selling it to absolve consumers. Corporate politics and conflicting interests are actually proven to kill great ideas prior to they may be given a fair chance to be developed.
Focus groups enable us to see consumers top notch, absorb their feedback, and talk through key issues, allowing our thinking to evolve collectively. Ideally, key members of the brand team and outside agencies take part in this experience, implicitly granting them "insider status" and enlisting them as champions of your marketing idea or direction.
Building the bonds of a united front make it in an easier way to push worthwhile ideas with the system.
Conclusion
It is likely that this most vocal critics of focus groups might not truly grasp the power of meeting consumers face-to-face, and they are likely uncomfortable with something that isn't a "fact." The process demands of those involved the call to wrestle with a lot of ambiguities. But we are stronger just for this intellectual and artistic struggle inside long run, as deeper understanding will cause more incisive quantitative questionnaires and a lot superior marketing executions.
Contrary on the prevailing belief of countless marketing research professionals, quantitative research is not the conclusion all. To quote Albert Einstein one more time:
"Not precisely what might be counted counts, instead of exactly what counts can be counted."