A Second Opinion v focus group research.
Unlike A Second Opinion, who has 30 years experience creating advertising, the people who comprise focus groups are randomly recruited from the street, or by telephone and whose only qualification is the willingness to be paid $60 or so to be asked questions for an hour or so, drink beer and eat potato chips.
And in those focus groups, opinion can easily be influenced, no, hijacked by one loud or assertive individual who intimidates the others into agreeing with his or her often highly prejudiced and uninformed opinions before stuffing his or her pockets with a few leftovers from the refreshment tray (often forgetting that the groups are either videotaped or viewed though one-way glass) before wandering off into the night.
Indeed, it has been suggested that the whole process of market research is deeply flawed.
Because focus groups constantly compare the concepts put before them with advertising that's familiar to them from watching TV, listening to radio or flicking though newspapers, truly original ideas or those that don't conform to any standard formula or oft-repeated format may often fail to be recognised for the potential gems they are and thus, summarily dismissed.
Certainly A Second Opinion can recount numerous examples over a distinguished 30 year career as a copywriter when precisely this scenario occurred, much to the frustration of the copywriter and the almost certain loss of a potentially powerful property for the client.
Yet it's often the idea which seems dangerous or frivolous or simply unusual as a concept which has the greatest potential to be effective when it runs. The sort of idea that could be dismissed by a focus group but recognised as a gem by A Second Opinion.
However despite A Second Opinion's criticisms of market research, we are not necessarily suggesting you abandon it altogether. Far from it. In fact our services may even work best in conjunction with it.
That makes a lot of sense if you think of A Second Opinion as some extra due diligence in the process of risk management.
Or, to invoke a metaphor, having both market research and A Second Opinion appraise the work could be likened to having your advertising concepts appear before both a Judge and a Jury.
Used before market research, as a preliminary sounding-out of the advertising concepts, A Second Opinion may confirm your own suspicions that the concepts are not worthy of further appraisal, and the next, expensive step of research may be deemed unnecessary.
Considering that the cost of conducting the minimum recommended 3 focus groups at $5,000 a pop could be at least $15,000, it's not something that should be approached lightly. And that's just to research one concept in one city.
Obviously the costs of conducting focus groups increase dramatically where testing of multiple concepts in multiple cities takes place. Which would obviously be the case in judging competitive pitches.
At the very least A Second Opinion will be able to articulate the potential negatives or problems inherent in a concept in a more informed and useful fashion than "Nah, I don't like it", which may be the most erudite comment a member of a focus group is capable of.
It raises the bar in the management of risk. Of course there are no guarantees in marketing, but spotting potential negative issues prior to the expenditure of large sums of money on advertising is basic due diligence. Or as an unkind and cynical creative person might put it, an exercise in "covering your arse."
