Archive for the ‘Focus Groups’ Category
Monday, April 19th, 2010
The Holy Grail for the market researcher is to find out what people really are thinking. When we ask people in interviews what is the importance of a brand, or how much they value a trustworthy supplier, we can’t always believe we have got the right answer. Throughout our education we are taught to think rationally and therefore when we are asked questions in a market research survey, we are likely to answer rationally. This means that we are in danger of overstating the importance of the rational factors such as price and technical performance at the expense of the emotional factors such as appearance, imagery, brand and the like. For this reason our attention was grabbed by an article in the Financial Times this week which scarily tells us that scientists are close to being able to tap into our innermost thoughts by putting on our heads a red bathing cap with wires attached. Apparently without asking any questions, they can work out what emotions are most successful in persuading us to take action. Read on…
Why marketing minds have turned their heads to mind-reading
By Hannah Kuchler
Financial Times April 12 2010 03:00
Last month, I surrendered my subconscious to analysis. A red swimming cap was stretched over my head, long grey wires stuck to my skull and my innermost thoughts fed into a computer as I nervously watched an advertisement for Volkswagen.
In turn, the computer told a team of researchers which scenes I paid attention to, what I responded to emotionally and what I would go away remembering.
It was a far cry from the marketing industry’s traditional method of finding out what consumers think about their brands: asking them.
The problem is, when gathered in traditional focus groups, respondents can be swayed by those sitting next to them or by the presence of researchers. Alternatively, they may be unable to articulate their responses accurately. As a result, a rising number of marketers now prefer to analyse the response of peoples’ brainwaves to brands and advertisements by using the latest developments in neuroscience.
In recent months, these techniques have not just been applied to the marketing of finished products, but also to product development. “It’s about uncovering new undiscovered needs,” says Martin Lindstrom, author of Buyology , who has been studying the development of neuromarketing since its inception seven years ago. “A lot of manufacturers are struggling as it’s easy to come up with ideas consumers don’t feel they need.”
He cites the example of dishwasher tablets. Consumers are attracted to tablets embedded with a blue ball because, subconsciously, they believe they clean better. However, when asked in the context of traditional marketing methods, they claim no preference about colour.
“The main reason why [traditional market research often] fails is that we look at things from a conscious point of view,” says Mr Lindstrom. “We ask: ‘Do you like the brand?’ We ask the consumer to be incredibly rational and we know today from neuroscience that 85 per cent of the decisions we make are made by the unconscious part of brain.”
Neuromarketers believe their work will be especially useful for products consumers find hard to describe – particularly when they need to know consumers’ reactions to smell, taste and touch.
According to Neurofocus, the global market leader in neurological testing, consumer goods companies are even creating their own in-house testing units that mock up supermarkets. They can use them to change everything from shelf positioning to point-of-sale advertisements with the flick of a switch and monitor the shopper’s brain during the few seconds it takes to select a product.
Professor Gemma Calvert, co-founder of UK-based Neurosense, believes the future for neuroscience lies beyond products: “I see the spread of these tools into things like the financial sector - to understand how trust is built and broken down for the banks – how do you make us feel safe and secure?”
Anantha Pradeep, Neurofocus’s chief executive, believes the possibilities for neuroscience are almost limitless: “The challenge for us is to be focused because we could use it in any area of life which needs emotion and persuasion.”
But some advertisers fear this adherence to science could stamp out “light bulb” ideas and destroy creativity in the industry.
Neurofocus argues that mind-reading actually helps sell original thinking to companies that would otherwise stick with tried-and-tested methods.
“The principles [of neuroscience] are like the keys of a grand piano – you can do a lot with them,” says Mr Pradeep. “And we’re adding keys all the time.”
Perhaps a larger concern is that consumers will find it increasingly difficult to resist the pressure to buy.
“We believe we’re incredibly clever, but in reality we’re less and less immune,” says Mr Lindstrom. “There’s an urgent need to create ethical guidelines. It’s like a hammer: it can be used to put a beautiful painting on the wall or to hit someone on the head.”
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Monday, April 12th, 2010
We like Luke Johnson’s column in the Financial Times and regularly feature it on our blog. He is something of a hero of ours, having built up Pizza Express, become exceedingly rich as a private equity investor, and proved to be an astute commentator on entrepreneurial issues. It was with a sinking heart that we read the article he wrote about focus groups in the Financial Times last week.
Luke Johnson singled out focus groups for criticism but in truth his points could be applied to any type of market research. He claims that market research he commissioned told him very little that he did not already know. This will not be an unknown observation to many market research practitioners reading this blog. They will have often times presented a detailed and thorough piece of research with many incisive findings and sharp recommendations, only to hear some member of the audience claim that there was nothing new in it for them.
One way round this would be to ask everyone who attends a market research presentation to bring with them a sealed envelope in which they summarise their pre-understanding of the market so that it can be compared with the findings of the research survey. When market research findings are laid out in a clear structure it is quite likely (and quite right) that much of what is said will concur with existing knowledge. However, without the market research, the knowledge may be uncoordinated and there could be many internal disputes about where the marketing priorities lie. A good piece of research that confirms knowledge and places it in a framework that everyone understands, can be worth its weight in gold.
However, there is another issue that is worth considering. There is an old saying that “a problem defined is a problem half solved”. In other words, a good brief, which clearly lays out the problem to be researched, is critical in delivering findings that resonate. In the case outlined by Luke Johnson, an obvious question we would ask is “what were the focus groups seeking to achieve?”. Focus groups work best as an exploratory tool, possibly forming the first stage of a larger program. Were the focus groups used as a single research solution to something that should have had a qualitative stage followed by a quantitative stage? We don’t know, but we do know that there is a dangerous tendency to commission focus groups as a stand-alone research solution when they should be just one component part.
We shall carry on reading and promoting Luke Johnson’s articles because he challenges all and everything around him and we like that. However, on this occasion Luke, we think you may have been a tad hard on the market researchers and maybe you should also challenge yourself — did the research really tell you nothing worth knowing, and did you really give the researchers the right brief?
Read on.
Why focus groups tell you the obvious
By Luke Johnson
Financial Times – 24th March 2010
I recently commissioned some market research and, as is too often the case, it told me what I already knew or was obvious. I paid the bill of several tens of thousands of pounds, consoling myself with the fact that the work at least confirmed my prejudices – always a satisfying sensation. But I also sensed I had received very poor value; and in talking to other clients of research companies, I realise quite a few feel the same way.
As Michael Skapinker wrote yesterday, the idea that the customer is always right has become an accepted truth in business. Unfortunately, customer desires are often wholly unrealistic – because of cost, technology or legislation. As Henry Ford said at the launch of the Model T: “If I’d asked the customer, he’d have asked for a faster horse.”
I remember Peter Boizot, founder of PizzaExpress and my predecessor as chairman, telling me how, in 1965, customers in his Soho pizzeria felt uncomfortable with authentic Italian pizza – and demanded chips. But he stuck to his vision and guided their tastes to the genuine product.
I have also experienced data blindness over research studies. Consultancies supply blizzards of material – far more than could ever be useful. Wordy, sprawling PowerPoint presentations compensate for a lack of incisive thinking. One can end up paralysed with indecision, buried in e-mails too large to even download.
Great breakthroughs in fields such as new product development are frequently achieved by avoiding surveys and committees altogether. Constant testing can lead to blandness and safety-first choices. In creative affairs, corporate brainstorming sessions usually end up with groupthink dullness, all originality squeezed out because of the fear of failure or through the influence of office politics. As Steve Jobs said: “It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”
At Channel 4, many of the most brilliant and distinctive programme ideas during my time as chairman were pioneered by eccentric independent producers who were championed by renegade commissioners. Meanwhile expensive, mainstream concepts often flopped.
Over the decades since I worked in advertising, I have sat in many focus groups and wondered about the quality and effectiveness of such qualitative research. After all, who submits to a two-hour discussion about brands of washing-up liquid? All too often, the answer is the lonely, the old, the unemployed, students and, most worrying of all, serial participants in search of the small stipend and free tea and biscuits. It is very hard to persuade a normal working person to attend such panels, but they are usually the target subjects.
I worry that researchers who appear to succeed are too often the snazzy firms who trade in sexy stereotyping. They use phrases like “Inner City Adversity” and “Twilight Subsistence” to categorise and supposedly understand various imagined socioeconomic and demographic groups. I am unconvinced that this terminology and philosophy is especially practical and relevant for many companies. In my restaurants, the people who know our customers are not researchers but branch managers, who serve the public all day, every week. Our staff may not have the slick patter, but they have the frontline, first-hand knowledge.
Another unfortunate byproduct of the growth of research has been the increasing use of surveys by political and charitable organisations in their campaigns. Almost every day a pressure group gets publicity by publishing selective and scary conclusions about poverty, health, discrimination or other controversial issues. Journalists rarely question the study methods or validity of the results. Even if there were no errors in the sampling techniques, questionnaires or systems used, the media often over-simplify and exaggerate outcomes.
Over-reliance on researchers means owners and managers are separated from the consumer. Successful entrepreneurs I know put more effort in talking to customers themselves, than they do working with costly experts who tell them what they should have learned long before.
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Friday, April 9th, 2010
During a week of laryngitis, Eve Lenkowsky reflects on how frustrating it is to lose your voice—and how market research can be a powerful cure for millions of people worldwide.
Wouldn’t you bet my luck that the week the weather turns beautiful and everybody is ready to go outside and shout, that I should lose my voice! Since Saturday, I have been croaking, whispering, and wheezing at anybody who can stand being within earshot of my raspy voice. Luckily, I have people who care for me and who patiently crane an ear to hear what I am saying. But after a while, whether I’m trying to communicate with a loved one or a stranger, I wind up screaming but my words barely come out. Eventually, when you keep on yelling but nobody hears, you give up on trying to get someone to listen. It becomes very frustrating, and sometimes disheartening, when your voice is lost.
I think that it is times like these that make me appreciate being a market researcher the most. That’s because I spend most of my time listening to the voices of other people who might otherwise go unheard. Whether it’s a construction worker or a printer, a doctor or a lawyer, business owner or a scientist—these are the people whose voices really have something to say. They are the end-users, the experts, the consumers and people closest to the products and services that our clients provide. They have a vantage point that our clients can only guess at. Sometimes it’s good feedback, sometimes it’s negative—all of it is important.
I listen to people’s opinions and requests for improvement in many ways. Sometimes I have the pleasure of speaking with respondents on the phone, either asking them a specific list of questions or having an in-depth discussion to focus on subjects with which they have the most experience. Sometimes, we’ll do focus groups with a bunch of people saying what they think and commenting on each others’ views in a conversation. Other times, I’ll read through comments that hundreds of people type into online surveys when we ask them open-ended questions. Market researchers call these people’s comment quotes ‘verbatims,’ because the person literally tells us his or her point of view—verbatim.
Have you ever taken a survey that asks you to answer a question by typing in a comment? Or given some of your time to answer a survey over the phone? Well, rest assured, your voice will be heard! There’s going to be a market researcher out there like me who reads through all of your complaints, compliments, and suggestions, and then communicates your key points directly to the person who has the power to make things better.
Market research creates an open dialog that allows consumers to communicate back to the businesses that sell and advertise to them. Consumers are bombarded every day with messages from companies, and market research is one of the key ways that they can speak out and bring about change. Think of it as activism that is actively sought by companies, that benefits everybody.
So basically, my job lets me be the voice of thousands of people every year, sharing their opinions with our clients so they can make their products and services better. I can’t ask for anything more—and this week, with this sore throat, I mean that literally!
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Eve Lenkowsky, Focus Groups, Market Research, Online Research, Online Surveys, Product Development, Surveys, Thursday Night Insight |
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Monday, December 14th, 2009
With worldwide expenditure on online research predicted to almost treble over the next three years, market research specialist B2B International believes the future is rosy for most online techniques, especially focus groups.
The technological revolution of the past 15 years has led to the rapid development of online data collection methodologies. Of these, the online survey is the most established but, more recently, online focus groups have emerged, making it possible to obtain qualitative information online.
Following similar principles to Internet message boards, the online focus group differs from online surveys in that it allows every participant to see the responses of all of the other respondents and encourages them to respond to these views as well as to the initial question posed by the researcher. In addition, the researcher inserts questions as the discussion develops, in order to probe areas of particular interest, or to gain further information on new topics that participants introduce to the discussion. In this way, online focus groups enable a real-time, dynamic discussion to develop between the researcher and the respondents, just as would be the case with a face-to-face focus group.
Business-to-business market research specialist B2B International has been firmly established in the online research industry since the company’s inception in 1998 and remains one of the forerunners in e-enabled research. B2B International has recently published a comprehensive White Paper – Using Online Focus Groups As A Business-To-Business Research Technique – which gives a balanced assessment of the rationale behind using the online focus group as a research methodology.
The White Paper outlines 13 key reasons to conduct online focus groups:
- Volume of information
- Depth and quality of information
- Reflection time
- Accuracy and granularity
- Inclusiveness
- Honesty of respondents
- Better spread of respondents
- Incorporating different geographies and time zones
- Researching senior respondents
- Participation rates
- Introducing stimulae to the conversation
- Everyone has an equal say
- Client participation
In addition to highlighting the undisputed benefits, B2B International Director Matthew Harrison, author of the White Paper, shares some of the insights that B2B International has learned through the large number of online focus groups it has conducted over the last several years. According to Harrison: “Online focus groups can take place for a defined period of, say, 90 minutes, as with a face-to-face focus group but our experience shows us that online groups are more effective when spread over a period of 2 days, with respondents entering the discussion at different times to suit their convenience. This way, groups generate more considered opinion and a greater volume of information, adding real value to the research.”
However, internet focus groups are not suited to every research project and B2B International is quick to recognise the limitations. These include the fact that certain target audiences – particularly the less web-savvy – are less suited to online groups than others; respondent recruitment can be labour-intensive and expensive; and certain limitations exist with presenting physical stimulae for respondents to touch, feel or smell.
In spite of this, Harrison is optimistic about the future for online focus groups: “There are many reasons why we believe the prominence and effectiveness of online focus groups will increase, but key among them would be convenience and technology. Increasingly busy schedules coupled with the need to speak to respondents all across the world make online focus groups an ever more viable option. Secondly, there will continue to be huge advancements in the capabilities of and familiarity with technology, enabling greater numbers of respondents from all across the world to take part with increasing ease and improved effectiveness.”
To read the white paper in full, please click here.
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Friday, June 27th, 2008
Although the annual intrigue and expectation regarding the BBC’s The Apprentice has now long since died down, in this week’s Thursday Night Insight, B2B Marketing Manager Caroline Harrison nonetheless reflects upon a recent re-run of the show and finds some more valuable business lessons can still be learned.
Recently I watched a re-run of an episode of The Apprentice on TV. It was an episode which I had not seen previously, but was (yet another) one in which you sit in disbelief as an ambitious individual with a huge ego has unshakable faith in their own judgement. As always, it makes for great TV when this person gets the comeuppance that everyone else has seen coming from the start.
The individual concerned was leader of the girls’ team tasked with creating and pitching a prototype product to retail at £10 or less. With two possible ideas for a children’s toy on the table – a toy robot and the team leader’s own idea of "Secret Signals" semaphore cards – both concepts were put to the vote.
The five fellow members of the girls’ team unanimously preferred the robot idea, considering the semaphore game old fashioned and effectively redundant in the age of texting.
Undeterred, focus groups with children – the key target market for the potential product – were arranged. Once again, the decision was unanimous, with the focus groups all showing a clear preference and potential market opportunity for the robot idea.
At this juncture, common sense would tell most people that they should back down or risk being left with egg on their face. Of course, everybody is entitled to have a different opinion, and there are products on the market which meet the various needs of many, many different people. However, market research – and in this particular case, a focus group – is used for a reason. It gives a great insight into what a potential market is really looking for in a product or service, and helps to establish whether there is a measurable need or desire for your concept in the first place. Anyway, the team leader flew in the face of what the whole world was telling her and decided to plough on with her ‘brilliant’ idea regardless. Needless to say, the whole project was a disaster and the team leader in question was the next Apprentice candidate to be given the boot.
That’s not to say that people can’t come up with ‘wacky’ ideas which prove to be hugely successful in spite of the initial reservations of some of their friends or colleagues. It’s just that when research shows time after time after time that your idea will not sell, chances are that your idea will not sell. The only silver lining from this whole fiasco would seem to be that very few people were surprised by the outcome of the task and that as a consequence few other people would disregard such compelling market research evidence at their peril.
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