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April 9, 2006
Is There a Place for Focus Groups in Brand Research?
Utilizing research to drive brand insights requires that qualitative approaches be used preceding quantitative research to establish reactions, perceptions and attitudes. These qualitative insights drive the development of hypotheses and recommendations, which must to be studied, or quantified, prior to adoption. They’re a preamble to testing with more formal, larger sample sizes to get “better” (projectable, defensible) results.
The research toolbox includes various sampling methodologies, including one-on-one interviews, web and phone based surveys, and focus groups. So when it comes to understanding your brand, where do focus groups fit? In our experience, they work well for brainstorming new brands or gathering creative and concept feedback. They’re more of an open-ended elicitation than some of the other methods. The whole idea of focus groups is get people to project their own opinions and attitudes.
However, it’s really hard to quantify or validate results, the sample size is small, and you simply cannot generalize findings to the target population. In fact, we’ve been called in several times by organizations who have attempted to research their brand with focus groups to get to defensible conclusions, and failed.
That’s why we’ve found focus groups aren’t as effective a method of gathering qualitative data on current brand perceptions as one-on-one interviews with employees, customers and prospects, validated with projectable follow-on research.
In our experience, the “one-on-one” interview process yields insights and frank, honest opinions much more effectively than traditional focus group formats, while costing substantially less. And as a vehicle to quantitatively assess elements of a brand platform, they are useless. Focus groups tend capture a moment in time, not how customers really organize their lives. And because group dynamics play such a large part in the findings, they aren’t effective for drawing conclusions about a given population, though they are often used for such purposes.
In brief, if you’re trying to brainstorm a new brand, creative concepts or brand extensions, focus groups are a great place to start (or finish). But if you’re trying to quantify your current brand, validate your position vs. your competition, understand attributes and values for internal audiences and external customer segments, then stick with methodologies which you can validate and defend.
Posted by mcorp at 09.04.2006 10:12 | Permalink
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