Focus groups have long been used by marketing executives and brand managers to test or help develop products. In Jack Gordon’s mind, the practice often fails to determine the most important aspect of a product — its emotional benefit to consumers.

“The reality is that most people are not comfortable discussing their emotional reactions in group settings,” says Gordon, CEO of AcuPOLL Research, a global brand building research agency in Cincinnati. “When people talk about a new product, they will invariably bring it into a familiar frame of reference — that is, into why and how they are currently using this type of product.

“A way to think about this is that truly unique ideas have sharp edges and angles. In attempting to make a new product more familiar, focus groups tend to round off these angles. In doing so, the ideas become less unique the more they talk about them.”

To help avoid this situation, Gordon suggests getting top-line emotional reactions from consumers rather than allowing them to over think their initial reactions. “The best way to evaluate a new product’s ability to grab the consumers’ interest,” he says, “is to allow them a very short time to make that simulated decision in research.”

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