Death of A Focus Group

Consumers lie.  Scratch that.  Consumers rarely provide honest insight into what they are thinking and feeling when in a focus group environment.  Why is that?  The process is flawed.  Let's review the process for a minute:

1) Consumers are called by "professional screeners" also known as telemarketers and asked if they would be interested in participating in a focus group for a certain amount of money.  In this current economic environment, who is going to say "No".

2) Consumers are asked to give answers to questions or respond to stimuli.  The problem here is if I am going to get paid and want to be asked to come back for another group, I will provide safe answers.  Hey, I want to keep this gravy-train going!

3) We provide stimuli so the consumer can provide their opinion.   If I ask you to choose from A,B,C, or D, you are forced to choose from that set of answers.  There is no room for another answer.  Can you say, "leading the witness!"

4) We typically only allow for 1-2 hours of probing.  Are you telling me that your brand is so important that you believe 1-2 hours is enough time to understand a consumers behavior, delve into their emotional psyche and learn how to interpret that information?

5) You are typically in a conference room setting.  This is the most unnatural setting for a consumer to be in.

I'm not saying do away with 100% of focus groups.  They are useful under very specific  circumstances.  However, it's time to find new ways to get at information.  Remember the first focus groups were developed by sociologists in the 1950's.  Unfortunately, not much has changed in half a century.

It's time look for new and more meaningful ways to understand consumer behavior.  It's time to put Sexy Back into consumer insight!