While I am by no means a fan of focus groups, I'm probably not quite as negative on the subject as most of the readers of this blog, for at least a couple of reasons.
First, I believe it's always a good idea to actually listen to your customers, even in a deeply flawed forum, and second, I have seen some spectacularly bad quantitative analysis, and what's worse, I have seen high-level executives credulously gobble it up.
I get the sense that management consultants can lie a bit more effectively with graphs and figures than with quotes and video clips, but that could just be because I know how to lie more effectively with the former rather than the latter.
Regardless, here are a couple of my favorite fictional treatments of the topic.
Little Caesars
Silicon Valley
Group interviews can be great in some situations but focus groups as they are commonly conducted deserve to be mocked.
ReplyDeleteCredulous executives will believe anything that supports what they are hoping to do, or, failing that, provides clear evidence of an even better opportunity. You don't even have to cherry-pick comments out of a focus group--just invite your clients to observe and they'll do it themselves. And BONUS: if you frame your qualitative research as artisanal, small-batch quant, you can still make graphs and slice and dice the data from your fourteen participants, and at least one of your comparisons will be significant at p < 0.05.
Jeff