The End of Focus Groups

The above is the title of an article by Robert Morais of Carrafiello Diehl & Associates appearing in the May 2001 issue of Quirk's Marketing Research Review. If you have not read the article, I highly recommend that you do, especially if you or your clients frequently use FGI's. Mr. Morais presents a very good argument for limiting the use of the technique. I agree with Mr. Morais. All too often the technique is utilized for decision making. I have often told my clients that you should come out of focus groups with more questions than when you went into the sessions, not less.

Following are some of the key points in Mr. Morais's article.

Two anthropologists from Cultural Dynamics sell their service on the basis that focus groups have little to do with actual behavior and beliefs. As they put it, "Why did it never occur to an anthropological fieldworker to sit his or her respondents around a table in the middle of their village, feed them a sandwich and a soda, then ask them to describe their lives, rituals, social hierarchy and sense of kinship?" The reason:  respondents cannot and should not be expected to accurately characterize their lives in such situations, nor should their on-the-spot reactions to advertising or new product ideas be viewed as a reflection of their actual beliefs.

In another area of the article, Mr. Morais points to an analogy attributed to Mr. Jon Steel in his book Truth, Lies & Advertising. Mr. Steel states, "I believe that the thoughts and behavior of a human focus group respondent are as representative of the broader population as the thoughts and behavior of a chimpanzee in the San Francisco Zoo are of chimps in the East African forests. Which is to say, not very representative at all."

In the article, Mr. Morais discusses a number of alternatives to the focus group technique. Within the techniques he discusses, he mentions in-home and in-store observations. Now those who know me, know that those two situations are very close to what I consider the ideal research environment. As a matter of fact, as I have mentioned on a number of occasions, a group of us at P&G started in the late 1970s and early 1980s to conduct more and more research in the consumer's natural environment, the home and the store. In about 1980, we were looking for a replacement for the typical focus group. We were conducting too many, the cost was getting out of hand (about $2,000 per session in those days), there was too much role-playing among the respondents, and we were seeing the first light of the experts (repeat participants). For a replacement, we came up with an idea that was about one-tenth the cost, the environment did not lend itself to the respondents stretching the truth, and we eliminated the unnatural environment of the focus group room. The solution, In-Home Group Discussions, a natural environment among friends at a cost of less than $200 per session.

Mr. Morais concludes his article by saying, "I am not suggesting that focus groups be totally abolished. Instead, I propose that their use be more restricted."

The Focus Group is an exploratory research method used in learning and understanding research and should not be used in decision making.