Focus Groups: In the Search of Cultural Meaning

I have conducted about 5,000 qualitative sessions during my career in market research.  Most of these sessions have been focus groups and a substantive number have been ethnographies. In our 2012 book "Hispanic Marketing: Connecting with the New Latino Consumer" (Routledge) we discuss focus groups with Latinos in much detail and clarify many common concerns marketers have in conducting them. In this opportunity I am reflecting on the focus group as one of the most misunderstood versions of qualitative research. Here I intend to talk about the essence of focus groups and how to make them work for cultural marketing.

A focus group is not a question and answer session.  For that you can simply interview people individually in person, online, or on the phone.  The focus group is a focused discussion to understand how people think and feel about ideas.  It is an opportunity for understanding how meaning is created collectively during human interaction.  

This type of interaction has great value because it reveals cultural meanings that are not obvious and cannot be asked directly. One cannot expect people to tell you why they prefer a product or idea just by asking a direct question because the context of the situation is not a realistic consumer behavior opportunity. But asking the group to discuss brand "X" is likely to reveal inner feelings, attitudes, and values. Thus, focus groups are not for finding out why people use a particular brand on an individual basis but to find out how the group talks about a brand.

But a key aspect of moderating a focus group is that the moderator must be a pretty silent person in the process.  One asks "please talk about brand X" and then one stops talking.  Silence produces discussion. One can also say, "interesting...  I would like to understand better how you feel... please tell me more about brand X," and again remain silent and nodding.  The richness of meaning derived from such an activity cannot be underestimated. 

I understand that many research departments and clients are likely to be anxious about spending money without having a long questionnaire as a discussion guide for the focus groups, but that is because many do not understand what focus groups are for.  They are for generating group discussion. If discussion and symbolic interaction is not the goal, then simply do individual interviews and save some money.

Besides brands there are many other aspects around which a focus group can be centered.  For example, a discussion on the importance of one's health.  As respondents discuss the issue, the observers and moderator infer the meaning of health and capture important insights that can be used to market products and services. Generally these are likely to be culturally laden insights that can be used for brand positioning purposes. 

Actually, on many occasions focusing on an aspect related to the brand as opposed to the brand itself can  be richer in delivering cultural insights. Thus discussing health can be richer than discussing "HMO plan X." This is because properties of the brand are more relevant to consumers and they can more readily engage in a meaningful discussion. The aim of the focus group is to uncover the meaning of health, in this instance.

There are those who hold stereotypes about focus groups because of their personal experiences. A poorly trained moderator can readily damage a focus group by not knowing how to establish a warm and comfortable personal relationship with respondents. A lot of the chemistry of focus groups has to do with the warm-up and the bonding phase.

Another myth is that focus groups do not tell the truth because one individual biases the others.  Clearly, this has to do with respondent selection, the establishment of focus group procedures, and group process management.  But most importantly, when one expects a focus group to answer a barrage of questions, one is bound to have more social influence of one respondent over the others because the focus group is being rushed and not carefully prompted to engage in concentrating on an issue. 

Further, social influence is part of social life and a discussion will reveal patterns of interaction that can be very valuable in suggesting marketing approaches. One way of getting group participants to focus before coming in contact with each other is to give them the assignment to do something about the issue they will focus on. That preempts much of the concern about social influence as people have been focusing on the issue.

I will write more about focus groups and other research approaches.  Here my main aim is to clarify that focus groups are for discussion focused on an issue or set of issues, they are not question and answer sessions. A moderator needs to be a social scientist by training, a group facilitator, understand cultural trends, and enjoy people profoundly.  

Focus groups are for uncovering cultural meaning in the course of symbolic interaction.

Why it is so difficult to do cultural advertising well?

Advertising, almost by definition is cultural. Advertising influences our culture. The culture influences advertising. Now, in a country with so many different cultures producing advertising that is meaningful to these diverse cultures is a challenge. While it is true that in some cases a single message may do well across cultures, many times the message would be more effective if it is customized to the target culture.

Many culturally directed ads are simply a manifestation of stereotypes and relatively trite. That is because the difference between objective and subjective culture is not generally known. That Hispanics have large families and that they are family oriented is true, but definitely overused, and almost stereotypically used in advertising. That Hispanics have an affinity for social gatherings is true, but also overused. These are all manifestations of objective culture. These are the cultural manifestations that we can observe. And because we can observe them we think these are the culture itself. But culture is much more than objective culture.

Subjective culture, however, is what we carry in our heads. These are our values and beliefs, for example, believing that our children will transcend us. That they are more important than us because they represent a step towards infinite eternity. That is subjective culture. When those values and beliefs are inserted in advertising they have a high probability of connecting with the consumer. That is, assuming that the rest of the message is actually honest and the product or service is valuable in itself. Thus making a product or service the one that embodies a feeling of pride, a sense of transcendence, the emotion of celebrating being alive, for example, can be much more powerful than the simple use of objective culture symbols.

So, why there is so much advertising that is sadly empty and simply innocuous? Because many in the advertising industry have not yet understood these issues. Many appear to think that simply convoluting a story and doing something to stand out in the clutter will do the job. Standing out is useful when what stands out is a central part of the message. Making the the story complex for the sake of creativity is not.

Clarity, honesty, directness, and having a good product or service to sell are key to good advertising. Creativity resides in parsimony. Simple elegance that as part of the message makes it emotionally powerful.

After all these years of doing research I have learned that Hispanic consumers are eager to connect with and believe honest advertising messages. So, it is our job to make that connection and believability available. We need to find the insights that make for the cultural occasion, for the cultural emotion that can surround our ideas, products, and services. This requires in-depth research. Research that digs deep into how people feel and think.

The process of account planning is precisely to make the voice of the consumer heard in the advertising context. But it is not necessarily the overt expression of what consumers say, but those subtle beliefs and perceptions that have been ingrained as part of the enculturation process. That which we bring from our childhood. As marketers and advertisers, our duty is to comprehend where the consumer is coming from so we can show we understand him/her. So we can better be of service.