FGDs – Cost effective way of gathering consumer insights

A focus group is a form of qualitative research in which a group of people are asked about their attitude towards a product, service, concept, advertisement, idea, or packaging. Questions are asked in an interactive group setting where participants are free to talk with other group members. Focus groups are seen as an important tool for acquiring feedback regarding new products, as well as various topics. In particular, focus groups allow companies wishing to develop, package, name, or test market a new product, to discuss, view, and/or test the new product before it is made available to the public. This can provide invaluable information about the potential market acceptance of the product.

Benefits/strengths of focus group discussions

• Group discussion produces data and insights that would be less accessible without interaction found in a group setting—listening to others’ verbalized experiences stimulates memories, ideas, and experiences in participants.
• Group members discover a common language to describe similar experiences. This enables the capture of a form of “native language” or “vernacular speech” to understand the situation

Weaknesses of focus group discussions

• However, focus groups also have disadvantages: The researcher/Moderator has less control over a group than a one-on-one interview, and thus time can be lost on issues irrelevant to the topic; the data are tough to analyze because the talking is in reaction to the comments of other group members; observers/ moderators need to be highly trained, and groups are quite variable and can be tough to get together. Also, the number of members of a focus group is not large enough to be a representative sample of a population; thus, the data obtained from the groups is not necessarily representative of the whole population.
• A fundamental difficulty with focus groups (and other forms of qualitative research) is the issue of observer dependency: the results obtained are influenced by the researcher, raising questions of validity.

It is important to note that Focus Group Discussions are a quick and cost effective way of gathering accurate information which can help marketers make a decision within a short time frame. There can be significant costs however: if a product is to be marketed on a nationwide basis, it would be critical to gather respondents from various locations throughout the country since attitudes about a new product may vary due to geographical considerations. This would require a considerable expenditure in travel and lodging expenses. Focus Groups are most suitable for generating consumer insights, which normally addresses when, why, how, where and what people do or do not buy a specific brand. This methodology is very effective in gathering data which enables marketers to understand the buyer decision making process, both individually and in groups.

In my next post i will provide a step by step guide on launching successful FDs.

To your marketing success!!!!