Rabid Research & Strategic Planning

Don't Blame the Car...

Lately, it seems to be very “in vogue” to follow in the footsteps Steve Jobs is alleged to have walked and dismiss consumer research as useless, reactionary, misleading, and/or a waste of time and resources. The argument goes something like this:

“Consumer research can’t lead to innovation because the consumer doesn’t know what they want, or they can’t envision something that doesn’t yet exist.” Henry Ford is often credited as having said that if he’d asked people what they want, all they’d have said is “a faster horse”.

Sadly, the underpinning of those arguments is the assumption that consumer research is nothing more than asking people direct questions and taking their answers to those questions at face value. That is not consumer research – at least, that’s not what we do at RABID Research, and it’s not what any good professional researcher does.

If a person gets into a car with the intention of driving to Florida but ends up in Maine, the fault lies with the driver, not with the car. And if a company fields a consumer research study that results in useless, reactionary or misleading learning, the fault isn’t with consumer research per se – it’s with the way the research was conducted and, just as importantly, with the way it was analyzed.

Good consumer research means finding ways to identify what people do, how they do it, how they feel about it, and what would make what they’re doing better, easier, more satisfying, less aggravating, etc. Getting that information entails far more than simply asking people direct questions – it requires the use of a range of different techniques that will vary based on the learning objectives and the target population, and then being able to interpret the data in ways that provide genuine insights into both current behaviors and unmet or latent needs.

Unfortunately, technology has made it relatively simple to find consumers and ask them direct questions – so easy, in fact, that some companies have begun to assume they have no need for an independent, professional researcher. And then, strangely enough, they blame “consumer research” for marketplace failures based on what they think consumers were telling them. The problem is two-fold – the questions often were asked the wrong way, and the answers were taken at face value, without the interpretive filter that professional researchers understand needs to be in place when analyzing data.

Let’s take Henry Ford’s famous quip as an example. Indeed, had Henry asked 20 (or 200) consumers what they wanted, they might well have all answered that they wanted a faster horse. But what would they have really been saying? First, that they wanted the ability to travel from one place to another faster than they could by horse. And if that was probed more deeply by a trained researcher, they might have revealed why speed of travel mattered, what the ultimate end benefits of faster travel might be, and what they would (or wouldn’t) be willing to trade off to achieve those benefits.

Would the consumer have invented the automobile? Of course not. But they could have easily provided the inspiration to invent a product that delivered on the desired benefits and that filled the unmet or latent needs the consumer was expressing – and that might well have been an automobile… or a motorcycle… or an airplane.

And a good consumer researcher could have helped our friend Henry avoid a bad mistake he made later in life when he decided that there was no reason to ever make a car in any color other than black. A good consumer researcher could have identified the ways in which a car was more than just a means of transportation – it was a status symbol, an expression of personal affluence, and, because it had symbolic meaning, could also be an expression of personal style – which might easily have led to the development of automobiles in a range of colors and visual styles beyond the basic black Model T.

There’s no question that bad consumer research can lead to terrible mistakes in the marketplace, just as a bad driver can do terrible things behind the steering wheel of a car. But that doesn’t mean that consumer research is useless – it simply means that it’s important to hire a professional who is capable of both designing a study that will reveal true insights, and of interpreting the data in ways that lead a company to make good decisions.

Don't Use a Hammer to Cut Down a Tree

We’ve been perplexed by the propensity to demonize focus groups. It seems like every new methodology (or even every repackaged old methodology) feels the need to position itself against focus groups and, in doing so, cast “the focus group” in the role of market research villain.

To be clear, RABID does not specialize in conducting focus groups. We are a qualitative research company with an array of tools in our toolbox, and we’re probably best known for ethnographic research. But there are times when a focus group is really the best tool for the job, and when that’s the case, that’s what we’ll recommend.

A focus group is like a survey – it’s a tool, and that tool can be good or bad, helpful or useless, depending on how well or poorly the research is designed, fielded and analyzed. Focus groups, in and of themselves, are neither inherently good nor inherently bad.

There are certainly situations in which focus groups are absolutely not the right tool for the job, and if they are the tool chosen, the results are bound to be disastrous. And even in situations where they can be the right tool for the job, they are still a tool – the skill of the tool wielder and of the architect designing the project will determine if the results are accurate and insightful or misleading and useless.

For any research project to be successful (that is, to deliver insights that result in good business decisions), it needs to be well thought out, well-designed, well-implemented and well-analyzed. This applies equally to any methodology or research venue being used, whether that be qualitative or quantitative, and whether that be focus groups or online message boards or research using mobile phones or ethnographic research or...

All too often the focus group is blamed for sins of the researcher (or the sins of the research requestor), rather than for issues inherent in the methodology. All too often we hear the following reasons why focus groups are, allegedly, BAD.

One person can dominate a group

Not if the research is designed to control for that possibility, and not if the moderator is alert and capable of correcting for that potential issue. There are many ways of controlling a group conversation to eliminate the possibility of one individual dominating the group. Failing to do so is the fault of the moderator, not the method (or the venue).

A focus group room is an artificial setting

Yes, it is. And so is a respondent’s living room if there are suddenly a bunch of strangers in it. So is the respondent’s mobile phone if it’s being used in ways the respondent does not ordinarily use it. There are times when a “natural” setting can facilitate obtaining more accurate learning, but in most cases, there is nothing inherently stifling about a focus group room.

If the moderator has an in-depth understanding of group dynamics, is capable of creating a safe and welcoming atmosphere, and can develop an empathetic bond with each of his or her respondents, insights can be surfaced in almost any environment.

And the ability to record the research, to provide respondents with a place where they can engage in creative activities (like collage work, story-telling, etc.), and for the clients to observe the process in a way that does not disrupt the group interactions often far outweighs any gain that might be achieved from using a more so-called natural setting.

Respondents lie or posture or try to please the moderator (or their fellow respondents) in a focus group

All respondents, no matter the method or the venue, will do and say things that may not necessarily be truthful. There are two important reasons for this, and both of those reasons impact ALL forms of market research – not just focus groups.

The first reason this happens is that we, as human beings, are NEVER fully conscious of what we do and why we do it. We simply couldn’t function if we had to think through where we were going to put our foot down as we take each step walking down the hallway. And the reasons WHY we do what we do are invariably a combination of conscious, rational reasons and a host of subconscious or emotional reasons lurking below the surface.

The second reason, which is the one most often flung at focus groups as a specific criticism of the methodology, is that people modify their behaviors and censor what they say in an attempt to manage their social image. The reality is that this happens in EVERY form of market research – even if there is no visible or audible interaction with a researcher or another respondent. It happens in survey research. It happens in ethnographic research. It happens in online research, in interactive mobile research – in short, it is an inherent pitfall in research – not in the focus group methodology per se.

In the end, the quality of research results will be primarily dependent on two factors – the clarity of the learning objectives (including how that learning might be put to use by the organization requesting the research), and the skill of the researcher who is designing, implementing and analyzing it. If you use a hammer to cut down a tree, the effort will fail, and the same is true if you misuse any research method.