art of conversation

Focus groups – dead or alive? Discuss.

(Picture by Capt Kodak) Following the bombshell that Sir Ralan Sugar thinks market research is valuable (see below) comes the revelation in this month’s Management Today that “focus groups” were first used in the second world war by the US military to test their propaganda films.

Focus groups have had a rather mixed reputation ever since. Love them or hate them, they have certainly become commonplace as an activity, but they have never lost that whiff of control and manipulation.

So, is it time to ditch them or time to re-instate them? The issue is being debated at the upcoming and highly recommended AQR/QRCA conference, Bridges to Excellence, Barcelona, May 7 – 9, 2008.

Over recent years, focus groups have come in for regular and pointed criticism. A good summary of everything that is “wrong” with them is here. The author, Philip Hodgson, says: “The big mistake is in believing that what the mind thinks, the voice speaks. It is time to start embracing methods that can deliver stronger predictive value.”

But who in their right mind thinks that what people say in groups (or at any other time) matches or predicts their behaviour? It is interesting that most of the criticism of focus groups comes from those who have another methodology to sell.

Of course focus groups as a means to evaluate something is flawed – and always have been. But this completely misses the point. As a way of exploring and understanding things, they are very useful. Because inside every focus group there is a potentially valuable conversation. The problem with “focus groups” is the focus, not the group.

To be honest, we hate the term “focus groups”. We do “unfocused groups”, or “group discussions” as we quaintly persist in calling them. Part of the problem is that focus groups as a brand have become bigger than the qualitative research process that they should be seen as being part of.

There were 9,689 results from a search of “focus groups” on Flickr. I think there were three kinds of things in the pictures.

Manipulation apparatus: most significantly, the one-way mirror; also things such as tick-box questionnaires ...

Facilitating apparatus: things like, chairs, flip charts, pens ...

Generative apparatus: people and their ideas, honest conversation, sitting in a circle, smiling, listening, being non-judgemental ...

What if we did focus groups using far less control and manipulation? There has been some interesting work on this topic, such as Francis Yelland and Caryl Varty's 1997 MRS Conference paper on unmoderated groups.

And such as the development of Open Space facilitation by Harrison Owen and others in the 1980s.

Most commercial group discussions are a balance between what matters to the participants and what matters to the paymasters. Perhaps that balance has slipped over the years.

We shall return to this theme. Don’t go away.

FOR NOT LISTENING TO FOCUS GROUPS - YOU'RE FIRED

In the latest episode (about new flavours of ice-cream) Sir Ralan (as he's always called) made a surprising reference to market research. He told the teams to do some research (their attempts were hilarious), and in the boardroom he emphasised its importance. "In my business career," he said, "I have learnt to set aside my own opinion and to do research to find out what the public think" (or words to that effect).

Well you could have knocked me down with a feather. I thought Sir Ralan's view of market research would be roughly as enlightened as his view of advertising (ie very old fashioned). And yet, there he is, so far on the side of the angels as far as market research is concerned, he is actually beyond reasonable.

I don't think we have any clients so angelic as to actually set aside their own opinion in the face of research. In fact clients tend to modify, expand or extend their opinion as a result of new insights from research, and I would argue that this active collaboration is a good thing.

So, a surprising view from Sir Ralan, and all the more welcome for that. Maybe he's a better role model for young business people than I thought.

Dominic

Let me tell you a story

Reading Kevin’s previous post, about recognisable themes or ‘hooks’ in ad campaigns, reminded me of a recent report from trendwatching.com.

The report explores how advertising has been telling ‘brand stories’ for decades; building up (and adding to) a story with recognised themes. Trendwatching.com has identified a new type of story which may eventually surpass the brand's own story.

They have named these ‘Status Stories’ and go on to explain that as more brands become niche, their stories are not always known by the masses. For niche brands, experience takes over from physical (and more visible) status symbols, leaving consumers telling each other stories to achieve a status from their purchases. Trendwatching.com therefore expects to see a shift away from brands telling their own story and towards brands helping consumers tell status-yielding stories to other consumers.

From the examples within the report, it is interesting to see if there is a move away from passive acceptance (or rejection) of a brand's own story and whether it is increasingly possible for consumers to have a more active role in the shaping the brands they buy and use.

So, I’m off to create my own personalised Kleenex box and start my first status story today!

Katie

"Confidence is a preference..."

There seem to be a growing number of TV programmes on advertising at the moment (eg Mad Men). To follow this trend, we thought 'why not post our favourite adverts?'

So, this is it. My favourite ad:

This is a cult ad which is meant to celebrate the football culture of Hackney Marshes and it does so with soul, grit and tension. Rough tackles, face-to-face blowouts, 87 football pitches full of real people battling it out.

Amongst them are a handful of 90's football greats such as ‘King Eric’, Ian ‘Wright Wright Wright’, and Robbie ‘God’ Fowler. Wearing average Joe style football shirts, they struggle alongside the other players. The great play with the small, the playing field is levelled.

And then there’s the iconic 'Parklife' song, the perfect fit. The voiceover is like a Harry Redknapp, Terry Venables and Barry Fry hybrid jollying you through the footballing scenes, and oozes an East London feel.

“Who's that gut lord marching. You should cut down on your pork-life, mate.
Get some exercise!”

It feels accessible and aspirational at the same time, it’s for Gods, Kings and us mere mortals. It makes you want to strap on your boots, don that number 7 shirt and get down to the park.

Nike's mission statement is:

"To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world. If you have a body, you are an athlete."

Or as I've heard it quoted. "everyone's an athlete - but only some of us train"

Simon

Keeping Continuity Creative

We’ve been thinking a lot recently about ads that ‘work’ and ads that don’t. Partly because me and my mate Chris Forrest were invited to talk about Stephen King’s Masterclass in Brand Planning at the book club hosted by Nick Southgate and those other nice people at Grey London.

The conversation came round to long-running campaigns which have a strong and recognisable theme or hook.

Apparently it takes about two years for associative connections to become forged in our brains. And that once the connection is made, it is hard or impossible to break. So you’d think the aim in marketing communications would be find a set of associations, something distinctive and recognizable and stick to it – update it and refresh it, add to it, by all means, but keep something constant.

Here are two ads trying to ‘move on’. Direct Line is a good example of how not to do it. Cadbury’s Flake does it well – although not everyone agrees.

The VO starts, “small business owners, we know you’re hard to impress…” and the ad is a slow zoom in on some random, expressionless guy. The VO drones on as the hard-to-impress face gets bigger and we end up looking at a Post-It note with a URL scribbled on it in tiny writing.

Actually, that was the original version. They subsequently added the red phone and the panel on RHS of the end frame. The point is, remove that red phone, which immediately brings DL’s shrill jingle to mind, and there is nothing left, at all. Perhaps they were trying to be all ‘business-y’ and thought the phone and its jingle was too childish or too consumer-y. Big mistake. Our mental image of Direct Line is almost certainly red-phone-shaped, these connections being well and truly forged by now.

What mental associations have been forged around Cadbury’s Flake? Perhaps, the woman on her own, the music/theme tune and the spilled crumb bit. The latest version features Joss Stone and has two of those three elements. She is not on her own literally, although she is maybe in her own world during her ‘Flake break’. To my mind it is a successful update, keeping enough continuity with the past but modernizing and making the portrayal of the woman far more credible, far less of an adman’s construct.

We don’t see Joss Stone stepping out into the rain, whereas previous Flake women seemed always to get wet, for some reason (in the field, in the canoe heading helplessly for the waterfall, in the convertible, in the bath).

In the book club, some people preferred the more artful Flake ads of the past, like the one with the overflowing bath and the lizard. Two separate ads, it turns out. This is the bath one:

Our brains play tricks on us. But they do love continuity in their advertising.

How to follow success?

It’s notoriously hard to follow a successful first album or Premier League season. Or advert.

We’ve all been trying very hard to like and appreciate Fallon’s follow-up to their inspired gorilla marketing, but it's just not happening. We preferred the emperor in his gorilla suit, this new outfit is a serious let-down.

We don’t have a problem with ‘irrelevant, unrelated, but fun’ ads, to quote a comment on CR blog. But it seems to us that, the more pointless an ad is, the more entertaining it needs to be.

It’s not that it’s got nothing to do with chocolate, that is not the issue. It’s the fact that the whole, expensive production seems to be devoid of an idea – or is it, toys (boys?) just wanna have fun? And does it resonate with women (not unimportant in the realm of chocolate buying)?

Maybe we are just not fascinated enough by airport vehicles, or Tonka toys. Maybe Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now doesn’t do it for us as a soundtrack. (Apparently this was a late call by the agency) The ad is like the Pixar film ‘Cars’ without the personality. But personality is exactly what an ad like this needs.

It seems that we are not alone in our disappointment. "I just can’t help but think this was the ad agency having one very boring and very expensive w**k at Cadbury’s expense" says TVs worst adverts

Seriously, the gorilla playing trombone would have been better than this. Or maybe we are missing something?

'PEOPLE BUY HOUSES THE SAME WAY THEY BUY SOCKS OR WASHING POWDER'

An ethnographer once told me this, and I think she was being controversial. Her theory was that people use the same kind of judgements (emotional and rational) when buying a house as they do when buying socks or washing powder.

However my own experience of buying a house is that there is a big 'aah' moment of emotional connection when you decide in your heart to buy it, but only a very little 'aah' with socks, or Persil etc. There is also a sense of drama when deciding on a house, that this is one of the more significant moments of your life, which you tend not to get with M&S pure cotton or Persil (unless you're the brand manager maybe).

But far more significant for me is the different mind state of being an active buyer vs a non buyer. I used not to buy anything at all if I could help it, but I've bought a lot in the past year. We've been doing up our house, so we've bought entire bedrooms, a whole kitchen, every kind of brand or appliance you can think of. Currently I'm trialling rugs, next it's TVs, then garden furniture and so on.

I think that being a buyer is a mentality. It's like a job. You explore the market, find out the leading brands, make your choice, find the best place to buy then wham, on to the next purchase. And yes, there is an 'aah' moment of emotional connection, faintly reprised in gradually decreasing waves whenever you look at the thing over the next few weeks/ months.

Being a buyer is like being hungry. You are looking to buy, you are actively scanning the market or the fixture, it's not a question of whether you will buy into the category just which brand you will choose. You get annoyed if you can't find what you want. And if you are not a buyer it's like not being hungry where any 'interruption' with offers of food just make you irritated.

All of which confirms my first instinct: that advertising and communications focused on people currently looking to buy from that category (narrow cast) is likely to be more effective and the role of broadcast is to direct us buyers to where we can find out more. We're in the market, so help us complete.

Dominic