In the video, these participants are asked for their reactions to the creative work, and asked what might be done to make the commercial more effective for them.
The ensuing inanity led the poster to conclude (from the evidence?) that focus groups are "dumb", and are dying as a research methodology.
No wonder advertising agencies HATE focus groups; dumb in - dumb out.
First of all, focus groups should never be used to assess the worth of creative. They are no more capable of doing that than they are assessing whether a new product will be a hit. As a methodology, focus groups are a terrible tool for getting people to look at new ideas and judge how good or cool or worthwhile those ideas are. Most people just cannot do that in a two hour session. What they can do is give you a glimpse of their lives and help you decide HOW a new product might be best applied or used or might make their lives better or easier. Groups just aren't going to give you cutting edge thinking, and it's ridiculous to expect them to.
Second, if you are going to test a new product or new idea in groups as a means of REFINING, for goodness sake, do it with a potential target audience. You would not test a new skateboard product with country girls and you would NOT test a cutting edge computer concept with the general public (which is obviously the make-up of this group).
All this video does is show an excellent example of the ways that focus groups are misapplied every day in the marketing world - and the real crime is NOT the expense of the poor effort, but the opportunity cost of what might have been had the groups been done right.
7 comments:
Excellent post! Focus groups have their place, but only if they are comprised of a target audience. I'm sure the examples of focus groups missing on eventual successes is lengthy, but the one that jumps out at me is Seinfeld. The groups said it was terrible, but NBC ran it anyway. FGs are hit or miss sometimes.
-Gary Cope, SEO-KungFu.com
To be fair, this is a group looking at a storyboard for a 24 year old ad. Apple's marketplace dominance in certain product areas and household familiarity is an entirely different animal than when the advertisement first ran.
Much of what made this ad special when it first ran was Apple's position as an upstart, a new challenger in the computing arena. After nearly a quarter century of brand awareness, this is just not the same spot, to say nothing of the fact that the blue hues used in the sketches do indeed feel 'darker' than the more clinical grays of the original.
As far as Seinfeld goes: it was a commercial flop for three full seasons and only found its wings because of an especially hardheaded NBC development exec. Had it launched ten years later, it would never have stuck, which--the quality of the show notwithstanding--seems to indicate that the focus groups were right about its commercial viability.
Thanks Danny, for your well-considered comment. I think we agree insofar a the Apple ad is concerned - focus groups could not predict success then, nor can they now. As for Seinfeld, irrespective of the time it took to become successful, it remains one of the most commercially successful series in television history. The groups were therefore wrong about the commercial viability, though maybe suggestive it may take the show awhile to catch on.
Good post - spotlighting an interesting issue! Have you ever seen the "Century of Self" BBC series, spotlighting Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, who started focus groups back in the 50's? Definitely worth a watch! (Find on Google video). Bernays single-handedly invented the PR industry.
great. stuff
You have to express more your opinion to attract more readers, because just a video or plain text without any personal approach is not that valuable. But it is just form my point of view
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