Focus Groups in vogue again, thanks to Super Bowl

I feel so vindicated.  Which almost makes up for yesterday’s Packer-less Super Bowl.

After last year’s event, I announced the Top E-Holes of the Super Bowl.  Most of the winners, especially the Grand Super Bowl E-Hole — Groupon — had declined to conduct Focus Groups to pre-test their commercials.  My rant was about just that; the utter folly and pure arrogance of taking such a huge chance with their brand.  Given Groupon’s $377 million in funding, why hadn’t they spent the mere $20,000  to do a couple of groups? Simply as brand insurance, if you will.  Like duh. Ask the customer?

I would have been happy to take on a juicy new Groupon project, and of course always delighted to visit Chicago when the snow flies and black ice proliferates.

Oh what a difference a little joking about Tibet makes.  After the Groupon social media firestorm, this year smart marketers returned to their tried-and-true market research toolkit.  The Wall Street Journal reports that companies such as Hyundai to Bridgestone to Chevy conducted Focus Groups in advance of the broadcast. Now that viewers are tapping into Twitter and Facebook in mind-blasting numbers (Madonna’s performance during the halftime show saw an average of 8000 tweets per second), checking in with your customers in advance makes even more  sense.

Still, it’s always something. Yesterday’s reigning hashtags #Clint Eastwood and #Halftime in America were today’s brouhaha, both for questions about the star’s politics, and for the commercial’s mysterious removal and return.  IMHO, the spot and Clint were genius — kudos to the creatives at Wieden + Kennedy who pulled off this new classic.  Extra kudos for the concept of Visual Viralizing:  Share the video from the Chrysler YouTube channel and see how far across the country your Tweets and reshares reach. Brilliant.

Why Pinterest Should Be on Your Research Radar Now.

Oh savvy marketer, of course you’ve heard the scuttlebutt about new social darling, Pinterest. You’ve already heard that the online pinboard phenomenon just won the Crunchie for the Best New Startup of 2011.  You’ve already heard about the site’s “crazy, crazy traffic and growth.” 8000% in one short year.

You’ve heard about those sweet purchase-power psychographics — all those happily addicted Pinners, 80% of them women ages 25-44, who are spending an average of 14 minutes daily pinning like mad.  Growing the site organically by passing along hard-to-nab invitations.

And the Big Brands, especially retailers like Nordstrom, Whole Foods, and Lands’ End, who are jumping on board this thriving new platform. You already know the tantalizing details.

But your question remains: What’s in it for me, for my brand? Why should I take the time, head count, and budget to expand across yet another social space, especially when Google + and Tumblr are also growing in significance for marketers? Why should I bother?

Here’s why:   Pinterest is an unprecedented opportunity to get up-close-and-personal with your customers. It’s Customer Research as it should be.

While Pinterest clearly didn’t plan to be an astonishing new Digital Ethnography tool, the site is the most intriguing opportunity for marketers to go native that’s come along in decades.  At the core of ethnography is the study of culture — notably  the meanings individuals give to objects, people, events, and experiences.  Ethno actually comes from the Greek word ethnos — meaning folk or culture.  Graphia means writing.

From where I sit, a veteran market researcher with a trusty trendkit at my side , Pinterest is the epitome of our folky digital culture today. Marketers can essentially go native each time they visit the site.  Each board is a collection of what’s meaningful to the Pinners, along with graphia type responses:  Likes, Descriptions, and RePins.

Unlike traditional qualitative research, the methodology or structure is not owned or even necessarily guided by the researcher. We’re merely dropping in;  observing the customer in their native environment.   Call it a digital upgrade of those venerable Focus Group projective techniques — Vision Boards, Mood Boards, Treasure Maps. But even better, Pinterest is iterative. All those Pinners are vividly evolving their boards with every sticky minute they spend per day on the site.

Imagine watching your customers’ wishlist-style boards, all those wants, needs, and desires, as they’re mapped out in gloriously colorful detail. All those aspirations presented authentically and beautifully. Living scrapbooks of your customers’ life designs.

Pinterest is an exciting opportunity to:

• Conduct digital ethnography
• Discover new category/industry/style trends — what pins are most popular
• Study your brand’s Competitive Landscape (visually + response)
• Find new Influencers (many “existing” Influencers are already pinning but new, and perhaps different persona, are are emerging)
• Explore/test new themes, ideas, product development
• Crowdsource product development
• Name Generation.
• Imagine the deep insights of combining face-to-face Focus Groups with Pinterest Digital Ethnography.

Hope to see you on Pinterest soon. I’d love to help get your brand up and Pinning.  If you need an invitation, email me at: hello@guruofnew.com or @guruofnew

Three Compelling Reasons Why Focus Groups Should Not Die.

You’re a growing company looking to massively increase awareness of your product among mainstream consumers. You have a brand new $377 million cash injection from some venture firms. You have a pre-IPO valuation that hovers around $15 billion. You have a hot-shot ad agency salivating over spending some of that money on disruptive creative.

Super Bowl LXV, with the crowd-pleasing Packers at the helm, looms provocatively.

So here’s the $377 million question: How much of that cash are you willing to spend to avoid being perceived as an E-Hole?

That’s right. A ‘stupid and humorless’, ‘bad taste and bad business’ ‘shame on you’ E-Hole. And oh yes, someone who ‘makes fun of your customers by trivializing very real tragedies.’ *

How much of that $377 million dollars are you willing to spend to avoid losing evangelical subscribers, billions in valuation and pundits pontificating on your #epic fail?

In the case of Groupon, the answer is zero.

I have been fuming about this ever since the Super Bowl. These three Super Bowl E-Holes — Groupon, HomeAway and PepsiMax — need not have happened. Their companies need not have taken it on the chin (or in the case of HomeAway’s smushed baby, the poor thing’s entire face) nor did they essentially have to flush their pricey budgets and previously positive brand perception down the dumpster.

All it would have taken to avoid this E-Holism is a few Focus Groups. Three of them — a day’s commitment — would run around $15,000. That’s approximately 6 hours worth of sitting in a room, chomping on M&Ms and veggie dip, watching your customers and potential customers responding to your $3 million per 30-second Super Bowl spots. Heck, they could have simply viewed storyboards to sidestep spending the big bucks on producing the television.

There is no way any of these spots — from Groupon’s “Tibet” to HomeAway’s “Test Baby” to PepsiMax’s “Love Hurts” – would have made it past even a single focus group scott free. Even with a bad moderator and equally egregious back room behavior, it is impossible to imagine a Focus Group that would give these commercials a complete pass. The most inside of Groupon’s humor-elite insiders would have had to notice that the respondents weren’t laughing.

So why am I, the Guru of New, taking to the blogbox on behalf of a market research methodology that’s been declared if not completely dead, then at least wounded and doddering? Why am I not expounding on Sentiment Analysis, Text Analysis and Eye-Tracking?

Because this latest explosion of of E-Holes has me convinced that marketers are making an enormous mistake in neglecting to create some face time with their customers.

Yes, online research rocks. I pioneered in online groups and interviews way back in the prehistoric era of the Internets. Today, thanks to dazzling technology we could only fantasize about in those early days, I am even more passionate about the power and the possibilities for social research. But after watching this latest Super Bowl debacle and watching as more and more brands step in the digital doo-doo, I strongly urge a return to some of the “old” research ways that got zapped in our zeal for all things new.

*These were some of the comments posted on Groupon’s blog. And believe me, they were some of the kinder ones.

Shoot The Focus Groups? Not This Time.

It took more than a half-century for focus groups to die. From their invention in the 1940′s via noted sociologist Robert K. Merton through their glory days in the 80′s and 90′s, last century’s leading qualitative methodology had a great run. It wasn’t until 2005 or so, when then Yahoo CMO Cammie Dunaway plotted to ‘kill’ all the focus groups and author Douglas Rushkoff dubbed them ‘useless’ that the death knell officially sounded. Yes, there was a sputtering revival or two. (Online focus groups) But CNN finally nailed them completely with this year’s Election Coverage of perpetually undecided voters, ‘moderator’ Soledad O’Brien, and the ratings-friendly perceptual analyzer dials decorating the screen in happy primary colors.

Which is why (as a veteran Focus Group moderator and advocate) I was so surprised and gratified to read the latest news on last weekend’s wildfire VOM (Voice of Moms) aka Motrin Gate. Ad Age details the frenzied timeline plus the general take-away, including this paragraph:

Ultimately, Ms. Presnal (key Mommy blogger) said she sympathizes with J&J’s plight after having received at least two e-mails from (VP) Ms. Widmer last week. Reading from one, she noted that J&J had worked with focus groups of moms in developing the campaign.

“We listened extensively to moms, the insights about their lives, and how their pain impacts them,” Ms. Presnal said, reading from Ms. Widmer’s e-mail. She continued from the e-mail: “I think where this went wrong was the creative expression we used. … The tone was intended to be real and lighthearted, but it came off as irreverent. … We did conduct focus groups with moms. But truthfully they probably weren’t extensive enough to uncover this.”

Mon dieu! Amazingly, the ‘creative’ is getting blamed here. No quotes about how ‘useless’ or ‘dishonest’ the Focus Groups were. The only perceived glitch in the groups is that J&J believes they didn’t do enough of them.

With hundreds of Focus Groups under my moderator’s black belt, I certainly understand both the limitations of the tried-and-true and the temptation to switch to the newer, sexier Social Media Research methodologies.  I am deep into shiny new things myself: Twitter Product Parties, Hybrid Chats, Buzz Audits and Crowdsourcing Polls.  In fact, more than half of my research requests in the past 6 months have come from clients itching to jump on the intriguing Social Media Research bandwagon.  There’s good news from key social networking fronts: both Facebook and Linkedin have big plans to help researchers get uber-targeted, fresher data.

Still, I have to defend the original concept of Focus Groups, which I firmly believe is still viable — when effectively designed and conducted.

Guru’s Note:  Stay tuned for Part 2: Five tips to bring your (traditional, that is, f2f) Focus Groups into the 21st Century.

Say Goodbye to Bill Gates — and Windows XP.

Bill Gates has left the building.

And soon, Windows XP, the last operating system anybody (sorta) liked and actually wanted to use, will go poof as well. As of today, Microsoft is scheduled to stop selling XP to retailers and major computer makers, despite fervent protests from frustrated users who want nothing to do with XP’s successor, Vista. While there are still a few ways to get an XP loaded machine — including limited sales via smaller shops till January 2009 –all but the most resourceful will be forced to switch to the once heavily-hawked Vista.

This is why a group of PC users created a “Save XP” petition which is posted on InfoWorld, now reportedly with more than 210, 563 signatures–including mine. Signers want Microsoft to keep selling XP until the next operating system, Windows 7, is available.

Eric Knorr of InfoWorld pens an impassioned plea: We began this campaign because our readers compelled us to do so. Those of us who have been in the industry for a long time have never seen anything like the negative reaction to Windows Vista. Our readers have frequently voiced their frustrations about software incompatibilities, arbitrary UI changes, expanded hardware requirements, and altered security business rules. On the other hand, we’ve also heard from many users who are clearly satisfied with Vista.

Our point from the beginning has been that Microsoft customers should have a choice: For a reasonable period, those who want to license Windows XP should be able to continue to do so just as easily as they can license Windows Vista.

I will add my impassioned plea to Eric’s. As a Microsoft market research vendor, Customer Experience pro and frequent tech focus group moderator for the company and others in the industry, I have over the past ten years listened to hundreds of opinions, stories, criticisms and raves on the subject of Microsoft. I’ve worked with developers, consumers, enterprise, small business, IT, evangelists, you-name-it. My training is all about sifting through reams of feedback, crystallizing what has been expressed and spinning it into actionable form. In this case, seldom has there been such consensus: Vista sucks.

The lone (sorta) good news coming from Redmond? At least they will be providing technical support for XP through 2009.

“I’m A Focus Group Moderator and I Approved Obama’s New TV Commercial.

As a veteran market researcher and focus group moderator, I usually can spot Projective Exercises like Perceptual Mind Maps or ‘Design Your Ideal Product’ techniques.  Sometimes smart ad agency creatives, if they’re not too engrossed in either the Merlot or the M & Ms in the viewing room, pluck verbatims from the groups and sneak them into television commercials. There are countless anecdotes about this – like the classic McDonald’s theme “You deserve a break today”, which supposedly emerged during a focus group in Chicago.

One of the reasons to conduct focus groups is the off-chance that an expressive respondent in Cleveland will blurt out something so right on and real that it can quickly be transformed into a tagline or campaign that resonates authenticity. Another reason is to further understand what’s polarizing about potential products — in this case, fully figure out how Obama can satisfy the wants, needs and hopes of Hillary supporters who continued to passionately plead the case clear through to the bitter-end of Puerto Rico and South Dakota. And then there’s grokking to the likely toolkit of Karl Rove-style tricks that are already being emailed 24/7.

The minute I saw Barack Obama’s new television commercial “The Country I Love” now slated to appear in some 18 states starting this month, I knew that market researchers everywhere were nodding. The spot is so tightly targeted even a marketing newbie can’t miss the strategic genius in this commercial. Every sentence and shot, from the very visible flag pin to the neighborhoods ‘devastated when steel plants closed’ is perfectly calculated to resoundingly answer those persistent questions. Not only is the ghost of Hillary most decidedly flickering about but so are other symbols of white America — like Barack’s mother and grandparents. Carefully designed to be warmly reassuring with its message of Heartland working class character and values, this spot is a classic example of smoothly going from Me Media to We Media.

Much of this affecting and effective 60 seconds is subliminal.  While it’s all about heading off the negatives, it never feels anything but positive.

I only wish I’d been the Moderator facilitating those Perceptual Mind Maps.

Here’s the full transcript: (video link above)

OBAMA: I’m Barack Obama.

America is a country of strong families and strong values. My life’s been blessed by both.

I was raised by a single mom and my grandparents. We didn’t have much money, but they taught me values straight from the Kansas heartland where they grew up. Accountability and self-reliance. Love of country. Working hard without making excuses. Treating your neighbor as you’d like to be treated. It’s what guided me as I worked my way up – taking jobs and loans to make it through college.

It’s what led me to pass up Wall Street jobs and go to Chicago instead, helping neighborhoods devastated when steel plants closed.

That’s why I passed laws moving people from welfare to work, cut taxes for working families and extended health care for wounded troops who’d been neglected.

I approved this message because I’ll never forget those values, and if I have the honor of taking the oath of office as President, it will be with a deep and abiding faith in the country I love.

Live From LA! It’s Ladies Who Launch.

The only thing to do after a Friday night of Sex and The City is to continue the femme fun. So on Saturday morning, I headed out to the Ladies Who Launch Live event featuring a powerhouse of panelists including:

Jane Wurwand: Founder of Dermalogica
Paige Adams-Geller: Founder of Paige Premium Denim
Daryn Kagan: Founder of darynkagan.com and former CNN News Anchor
Heather Stephenson: Co-Founder of idealbite.com
Patricia Handschiegel: Founder and West Coast Bureau Chief of Stylediary.net
Amy Swift: Ladies Who Launch Editor-in-Chief and Los Angeles Leader

I’m going to let you explore the site and discover this phenomenon yourself. Over the years, I’ve been involved in countless women’s groups — and even founded a couple. Given my quirky alone personality, groups of any kind are seldom my cup of white pear tea. Then I discovered Ladies Who Launch, a group devoted to creativity and entrepreneurship as a lifestyle.  I signed up for the Palo Alto Incubator, under the leadership of Hazel Grace Dircksen, whose social media smarts and creative intelligence guided us through the four weeks of intensive ideation, visualization and inspiration. As a longtime focus group moderator and Idea Generation Facilitator, few of the Incubator’s methodologies were new to me.  But what was new was the wellspring of support, shared brilliance and confidence boosting flowing through every session. I had been desperately seeking fresh perspective on my business. I got it in droves from a wildly diverse group of positive, powerful women who are way more than business cards stashed in my pocket at some random conference.