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It’s a worrying idea that the success rate for first time product concepts is less than 20%, despite them being regularly vetted in focus groups. This should lead us to question whether the qualitative focus group may be the right tool to use for ideation or concept testing.
The concept of utilizing a focus group in NPD would be to find and identify the true emotions, experiences and opinions of customers – in order to identify an unmet need or look at the potential of an product idea (and, hopefully, improve upon it). However, over the last 10 years, there was a change in opinion, amid increasing evidence that focus groups actually kill ideas, particularly the most creative ones.
So why is there the point that focus groups kill innovation? Maybe referring from many frustrating hours of watching focus groups and reading the consequent debriefs with heavy hearts. NPD and true innovation is dependent on uncovering deep insights and unknown answers to conditions, often, consumers didn’t know that they had. But from my experience, focus groups, by their very nature, are simply not equipped to get this done – for three key reasons:
1. An artificial environment
It’s unsurprising that individuals fight to express their thoughts, feelings and ideas within a focus group. It is, in fact, a very unnatural environment – essentially strangers thrown together in a very windowless room, being led by another stranger, knowing their every move and testamonials are being watched by faceless others. Would this cause you to feel comfortable in revealing your deeper thoughts or even in expressing ideas?
Companies spend a lot of time and funds on generating safe and artistic atmospheres for internal ideation workshops and brainstorming. But we expect consumers to start and spill the beans in the totally artificial and non relaxing environment. Unsurprisingly, it simply doesn’t happen.
2. The tip from the iceberg
According to behavioral economists, economic decision-making is 70 percent emotional and 30 % rational. In focus groups, the alternative is valid. Consumers will rationalise their thoughts and responses. They will play the role of helpful by attempting to remove the emotion from their responses. Unfortunately, brands mainly live and experience emotion. Consumers goes so far as to use tough to respond to questions and give opinions, even if they do not know a better solution or what you say isn’t true. At best, focus groups give us a truthful and factual account of shoppers’ conscious thinking process – but the exact same thing, is problematic.
Neuroscientists declare that humans is only able to access about 5% of these cognitive processes – that’s, the thoughts, associations and emotions that happen in your brains. Harvard Business School professor, Gerald Zaltman, supports this theory as part of his excellent book How Customers Think. He writes: ‘Most of the thoughts and feelings that influence consumers’ and managers’ behaviour exist in the unconscious mind.’ And, to summarize: ‘Contrary to traditional wisdom, [focus groups] are not effective when developing and evaluating new service ideas.’
The fundamental issue is that focus groups are battling from the fact that most of our opinion about is unconscious, and our emotions are intertwined with your reasoning. Consumers within bring in more business are not being irrational or lazy, just unconscious (not literally, however some from the focus groups we’ve watched…!)
3. Seeing the long run
Every brand desires to differentiate themselves from the crowd by trying to differentiate itself from your competition. However, this may be the a very important factor that consumers in focus groups inherently dislike about new services and innovation ideas. They prefer to remain in ‘familiar territory’ with what is comfortable and expected, and of their current frame of reference. It’s just human nature.
So, when focus groups are given the unfamiliar, their natural reaction is usually to respond with scepticism and doubt. And this could be the reason why many innovative ideas, products and services have difficulty starting off.
This can also be problematic when focus groups are used to test new ideas. In these cases, negative feedback often shuts down the idea before it even grows to market. Most people have no idea whatever they want before they find it and so they can’t understand an innovation that comes into solve a problem they don’t really yet know they’ve. As Henry Ford famously said: “If I gave people what you said they wanted, I would made a faster horse”.
So what’s the result?
So if consumers can’t invent the longer term – and asking people in focus groups whatever they want or need doesn’t get these phones – is there a best tactic in driving new ideas for innovation?
Now, inside your, there exists a broader spectrum of exploratory research methodologies for insight and idea generation – as well as the choices are growing all the time. Using these new and innovative methods allows us – and our clients – require a fresh perspective and understand consumers from new angles.
Ethnographic and ‘in-situ’ based Research Solutions methods involve an anthropologist spending time with others since they begin their day-to-day lives, in order to see how they normally use and live with products. The validity of those methods is finally start to be recognised, after many years of derision. And people ‘in-the-know’ have become starting to appreciate this approach can produce invaluable insights. Reach is now offering an anthropologist as permanent part of our strategy team.
Success is based on spending quality, one-to-one time with people in natural settings, and ultizing the right tools. It’s important to see the limitations and possibilities of shoppers’ abilities to create and understand new ideas. We must be able to get rid of the blinkers and expands minds. We do this by showing consumers the longer term – and also the possibilities – making a new frame of reference, which helps them to visualise and understand new ideas and concepts.
The goal associated with a NPD or innovation process is sales and market success. We would like to start to see the failure rate for brand new products drop from more than 65% – and the initial step would be to stop the default using focus groups. They may seem to be the fastest and cheapest way to gather consumer opinions, in case your itrrrs likely that stacked against you these are surely a false economy.
Focus groups may also be comfortable plus a known entity – but this is the very antithesis of innovative thinking. To quote one from the world’s most innovative thinkers, Albert Einstein, “Insanity [is] doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” So for true innovation, as well as a competitive advantage, try involving and dealing with consumers in a very different way.
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