the new science of focus groups

American Demographics, March 1, 2003

WHITHER online FOCUS GROUPS?

Back in the heady dotcom days, it seemed as though online polling was poised to make a clean sweep of market research - revolutionizing the way companies conducted quantitative and qualitative research. But although the Internet is firmly ingrained on the quantitative side, the qualitative side has not faired as well. From 2000 to 2001 alone, spending on online survey research, increased by 53 percent to $400 million, according to Larry Gold of Inside Research, while spending on online qualitative remains negligible.

The problem seems to be tied to the dotcom bust. In gauging respondents' emotional reaction to a product or an advertising campaign - one of the key goals of qualitative research - focus groups that were assembled online were never as effective as those that met in person. However, online groups were particularly well suited to examining Web-based business. Two years ago, for example, when Ruth Stevens was senior vice president of marketing at NatWest Bank's now-defunct CyBuy division (she's currently president of eMarketing Strategy in New York City), she found great value in online focus groups. "We were a launch business, so we literally only had a handful of people using our service. But we really wanted to understand what their experience was like. The fact that we could get them to log in from their homes and offices, all over the country, made it possible for us to fill up the virtual room," Stevens says. Now that the bumper crop of dotcom companies has shriveled, the market for online qualitative research is smaller.

Still, the ability to pull consumers together from all over the country to get quick, gut-level reactions, is not without its fans. Companies are finding that online bulletin boards, where a moderator posts a question and consumers respond when they want - and thus are able to give their responses more thought - are useful, says Gerry Katz, executive vice president of Applied Marketing Science, in Waltham, Mass. Although spending on this type of online research is still negligible today, over time, these bulletin boards are likely to become more popular. - ASW