I’ve reached a point where I’m not sure where I stand on focus groups and testing anymore.
As a kid in this business, I hated both, because I knew my ideas were great and anyone who didn’t see them as that just didn’t “get it”. Wasn’t ready for big ideas or different perspectives. Ah, youth.
As a senior level Art Director, I saw the value in both, they confirmed that you were reaching the audience you wanted, that the message was relevant and that the executions met expectations. Work that did that was easy to sell, easy for Marketing directors to defend and therefore made life easier for everyone. Always feels good to be effective. And for a non-confrontational guy, it sure was easy.
Now I’m torn. The security I’d learned to love from having some numerical backing behind the work bumps head-on into a desire to develop brands that lead rather than follow the target market’s opinions. I want to count on the creative geniuses, research whizzes and strategy gurus to be the invaluable resource they are. I want them to think, recommend, and defend their rationale. I want them to influence the market, not wait for it’s approval. This is hard. It’s risky. It’s not conveniently supported. It requires faith. Not only on the part of the agency, but on the part of the client. How do we convince a client who like anyone else, wants a stress-free day, that they should embark on a path fraught with risk vs. the well worn road they already know?
The hope is that we can develop relationships with our clients where we can convince them that the true brand leaders don’t rely on testing to approve the work they do, they do the work that should be done, then test to see if the market follows their lead. Those test results would have teeth. The challenge is in getting the client to see the value in the risk, and earning enough trust from them to let us do it.
I’ll keep you posted on how we do – success stories anyone?
Another thing to consider is how slow and expensive market research and testing can be. With how fast markets move by the time you’re able to gather data and actually derive relevant meaning, the data has become obsolete and the client has spent a lot of money.
We’ve also seen extensive research done for clients which lead to a direction or trend that might be against the status quo only to have the recommendations ignored because they are too “out of the box”.
Bob, this is a great post, and touches on an issue that we at Forty ahve been dealing with recently as well.
I’ve always known that it was important to take the results of focus groups, surveys, etc., as a piece of the puzzle, but it’s hard to ignore the comfort of the numbers. When 75% say they prefer option A, and options B and C get a fraction of that amount, it seems like the decision is simple.
But it’s not.
Strong brands are built on cognitive dissonance, on engagement, on memorability, on stickiness — not on being nice, pleasant, and safe.
Give a handful of options to a focus group, and they’ll tend to choose the obvious one. It’s the one they would have come up with themselves. It’s the knee-jerk reflect design.
Sometimes you have to push through the obvious and move forward into new territory, into concepts that make everyone a little uncomfortable. Those are the brands that change people. Those are the brands that change cultures.
You can’t love the obvious choice. You can only not hate it. In branding, that’s not enough.
I am young. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that liars figure and so should you – lie. I know that sounds horrible but bear with me.
Focus groups and testing are great for helping confirm your direction. They are atrocious at defining one. If you ask an average group of people average questions you are going to get an average result. It’s simply an ineffective way to accomplish what our clients hire us to do. Don’t do it. However, if you ask the right type of questions you can use the answers to verify or reject your choices.
Here’s a very silly example:
If you’re doing logo/branding work and you think the round corners on design A will make people feel happy. Ask “Do the round corners make you feel happy?” If they don’t make them feel happy they will tell you. But most people will either agree with you because you’re right or because you put the thought in their head.
By using very detailed questions, that will no doubt lean in your favor, you get answers that reaffirm your directorial decisions, prevent non experts from lowering the bar, and maybe even get a few answers that make you rethink your assumptions. Plus you have your figures to show the client. What’s the better metric if you’re the CEO a toy company, 80% prefer design B overall or that 70% said design A made them feel happy?
The most important thing to remember, that is often overlooked, is that we are Directors for a reason. If you remove direction for the job description in favor of numbers your clients are the ones who suffer. They’d be better off hiring 30 art students at $10 an hour and testing every design they come up with.