Ditching in-person focus groups is a mistake that will lead to weaker insights

“You go in for trainers and you leave with depression.”

The group had been talking about Decathlon’s competitors in the UK and this lady’s brutal summary of one store’s shopping experience hung triumphantly in the air. In just 10 words, she had brilliantly captured the problem with the brand’s customer experience better than I ever could.

I won’t say which sports retailer she was referring to. In fact, the power of the quote is that you probably already know. But it reminded me why I love focus groups.

Specifically, why I love the live, in-person, biscuits-and-mirrors kind of focus groups.
They often give you a killer quote, as well as a deeper understanding. They allow you to see your brand or category from a new perspective. You get to watch the weeks and months of theory meet the cold snap of reality through the eyes of your audience.

Things I’ve heard in focus groups have stayed with me for years. They’ve changed my stubborn mind about whole categories, shaped briefs and improved creative work. Hearing someone describe Guinness as “a drink for two middle-aged men, discussing their divorces in the corner of an old pub” crystallised the job we had to do in modernising the brand.

Being told that a script “sounds like it’s been written by someone in their 40s trying to be relevant to teenagers like us” hit hard at the time, but it made the work better.

Why commission new research when you are already sitting on a treasure trove of insights?In an industry tumbling over itself to collect and master big data, we have breezed past the focus group too readily. It hasn’t disappeared, but it has moved almost exclusively online. Covid-19 threw fuel on a gradual trend and now the clear majority of all qualitative research is conducted online.

Perhaps the blow doesn’t have to be fatal. The emergence of eBooks was supposed to kill the physical book industry. It didn’t. Spotify and vinyl can co-exist. So can escalators and stairs. They are different things, playing different roles. But online groups have become the default.

In my experience, as an ad agency planner, in-person groups are more energising, insightful and useful. They give you a clearer, richer idea of how people feel and why they feel that way. About brands and ads or about themselves and their lives. After watching and listening to them for an hour, I feel like I know these people, in a way I have never felt when staring into a screen.

Maybe it’s just me. Like all qual groups, I am a small sample that might be unrepresentative.

Sarah Jay, of Acacia Avenue, points out that “our clients didn’t appear to feel there was a massive drop in insight quality” when groups moved online en masse in 2020. She explains that “the benefits of online research started to feel as if they outweighed the disadvantages”.

She has a point. The move online has allowed brands to avoid the cost of venue hiring. It has helped researchers to cast their recruitment nets wider, reaching those who don’t live near London, Birmingham or Manchester, or find it difficult to travel. It has also allowed more people from client and agency teams to watch and listen, expanding the virtual room behind the mirror.

These are all welcome benefits. But I’d argue we have lost something in this move too. The functionality of Teams / Zooms / Google Meets (choose your fighter) is a barrier as well as an enabler. It minimises our abilities to read the people we’re listening to. It stops them from bouncing off each other’s ideas and energy. It forces a turn-taking formality that inhibits real discussion and debate.

Thomas Prosser, head of Kantar’s qualitative research in the UK and Ireland, wonders if at times “we’ve sacrificed connection for convenience”, which could be a critique of broader digital culture, not just research. Sarah agrees that we’ve lost something. “You don’t get those epiphanies online in the same way that you do in a room, because it’s so much harder to have a spontaneous conversation,” she says.

Where are you on the rich/poor staircase? Let’s find outWhile for Graham Booth, managing partner at research firm Movement, it’s the different experience of in-person research that makes it unique. “When you talk to people face to face, it’s a very different experience,” he says. “The difference in the atmosphere and the vibe is huge… The group dynamics are more fluid. It’s much more natural, more spontaneous and more interactive.” But he also believes that “killer quotes” are just as likely to come from online groups, if the environment is right.

Another, more hidden benefit of in-person groups is that the people watching are together too. Not sat at their laptops, half-reading emails. They are behind the mirror together, watching, listening and discussing what they’re hearing with their teams. It’s easier and faster to agree on what was heard and what to change for the next group.

None of this is to say that you can’t get comparable insights through online research. As Graham points out, with a skilled moderator, online qual can be just as illuminating. It is still possible to generate interaction and energy amongst respondents. To discern the feelings, themes and tensions that make research so valuable. But it’s harder to maintain attention and focus, particularly with younger respondents, who are used to multitasking when using devices.

AI is, of course, changing research too. Promising speed and scale in how insights are categorised and interpreted. Some of these tools can make our lives easier and our conclusions more robust. And it is typically smarter to surf atop the wave of change rather than rallying against it.

But as we rush to embrace the tools and platforms that can simplify and speed up our processes, and as we migrate more of our worlds online, we should remember that nothing really compares to the spontaneity and energy of talking to people face to face and, more importantly, listening.

Joe Smith is the strategy partner at AMV BBDO.