When Do You Do A Focus Group?

To focus group or not to focus group, a prevalent question for marketers, whether you’re testing concepts for a new product or advertising or purely gathering inputs for a full blown consumer research. Some would ask me, “Do we do a quantitative or FGD?” It really depends on the purpose or the objectives of the study. 

FGDs are exploratory in nature and it can also stimulate discussion not included in the moderator’s agenda. A not so rigid out of the discussion guide free wheeling facilitator is required to accomplish that.  

Bruce Crandall’s of Decision Analyst suggested these pragmatic approach on focus groups. 

Conduct focus groups when:

1. Relatively little is known in a given product or service

2. You need to explore multiple concepts

3. You want to develop survey for a subsequent quantitative research

Download “To focus group or not to focus group” to find out why.

How To Write a New Product Concept Statement That Works

Decide what ‘image’ you want for your brand. Image means personality. Products, like people, have personalities, and they can make or break them in the market place. – David Ogilvy

One of the many types of focus groups I moderate are product and advertising concept tests. Usually the client’s advertising agency will provide  2 to 3 written concept statements for the respondents to comment based on several variables. These concepts from a portfolio of a dozen or so studies are supposedly finalize or on some cases refined further. The concept statements are usually written in an illustration board, whiteboard, Keynote slides (if you’re a Macbook user like me) or Powerpoint. I usually request my client to provide the boards and have it discussed at least a day before the session. I also had experiences when my client would just put it in a bond paper on the day itself. Yup, those pieces of paper coming from the other side of the one way mirror.

What I normally asked my client to produce has a simple visual and a verbal statement that contains the following points.

1. A statement of the problem that the product is meant to solve.

2. A definition of the type of solution that the product requires.

3. Supporting attributes (physical and communications) that adds credibility to product’s ability to solve the problem.

By this I mean that when writing a concept statement you should state the problem the product is proposing to solve. The first paragraph should set the stage for the subsequent solution by defining the customer’s problem. Then tell the customer that your product will solve the problem. Lastly give the necessary attributes to support the facts.

Feel free to email me at ric.cortez@asiaresearch.com.org if you need any assistance, or to just simply share your ideas.