‘Hi, I’m Lucille Findlater and I’d like to introduce you to the Mishawaka Focus Group. You know, we’re the folk who produce the ideas for the ads you see on TV. As you may have seen in the South Bend Tribune, we belong to the Michiana chapter of the National League of focus Groups and have just been named winners for the second year running of the Concept Evaluation Cup. Yes, we’re very proud, especially as we were competing against some strong groups from such famous test-market areas as Fort Wayne and Columbus, Ohio. That nice Mr. Guratsky from the Doberman & Pinscher agency sent us a congratulatory telegram and Mrs. Lipchitz baked us one of her special seed-cakes.
‘There are twelve of us altogether if you count Estes and Ralph, who join us for the mixed discussions, and of course, our two teenagers, Anne and Debbie. Twelve is quite a coincidental number, I suppose. Mr. Guratsky says we must be the most balanced group in the country, demographically speaking that is. We’d make an ideal jury and in fact it’s a wonder we haven’t been called already. But perhaps they’re saving us for something special. We’ve been working together for such a long time that we can always be relied on for a quick consensus.
‘I’ve always said that the secret of our success is our teamwork. If at all possible we rehearse before a discussion. It’s so much more spontaneous than reading from an agency script and you end up with such a convincing tape for the client. “Verisimilitude” is the word Mr. Guratsky uses. Anyways, one of the best, the most realistic tapes we ever made was the time Mildred (that’s Mrs. Lou Harris) burst into tears during an open-ended discussion on grass-widowhood. I think she’d been rehearsing for years. We thought it was really a bit heavy and emotional, but Mr. Guratsky said, keep it in, and the client loved it. I think they were looking for a family membership concept for a country club.
‘Of course, it’s so much easier to run a good discussion if we know beforehand what sort of result the client wants. This is particularly true in the case of an agency that recommends a focus group discussion in order to buy time. For example: “Gentlemen, this area seems to be outside of present consumer experience so we advise doing a couple of focus groups just to kick the subject around a bit… What’s important at this stage is to dig out some basic attitudinal information to give the creative boys and girls something to chew on… We can always quantify at a later stage.” Or something like that.
‘This is the sort of situation where good verbatims quotes are important. A client loves a research report with lots of realistic verbatims, and creative people just eat them up. They’re the life and soul of an effective discussion, I always say. There’s usually a phrase or expression to suit everybody. With a couple of pages of well-chosen verbatims you can support pretty well any conclusion or recommendation you want. We’ve learned from experience always to keep a stock of verbatims in our word bank and before important discussions I get a fresh supply from my bridge club. Judy Galbraith (no relation) is our group intellectual and she can actually talk in verbatims; you can almost see the quotation marks. Judy has been quoted in several corporate marketing plans, and was once the reason for an agency account director being fired; but I think that was a typing error.
‘People are always asking me how we manage to generate so many wonderful new concepts in the group. Well, I’d say that’s one of the easiest things to do; it’s the fun part, really. Training helps a lot, of course. I swim a good half mile a day in Judy’s outdoor think-tank, and jogging is great too. It kind of gets everything swinging loose, if you know what I mean. We always read a page of the Britannica before going to bed, and call each other to discuss ideas. It drives our husbands mad. But we never stop creating. There was the time Mrs. Lipchitz was feeding us all chicken soup (we were very tired and depressed after a marathon discussion in Toledo and had bused back in the snow) when Mildred of all people came up with a brilliant idea for a miscellany gift page – “Just what I always wanted, a sterling silver bicycle chain” – that Doberman & Pinscher ran just before they lost the account.
‘The toughest thing is when a client asks us to choose between alternative concepts. That’s okay if we know in advance which one they prefer, in which case we simply rehearse a discussion which leads to the appropriate conclusion. “Consensus Management” is what Mr. Guratsky calls it. However, it isn’t always clear what the client wants. So what we do is hedge our bets and split up into two or three teams, each one proposing a different concept. The client is then able to choose from a kind of smorgasbord. This can lead to a most entertaining discussion. Mr. Guratsky is talking about getting us our own talk show on one of the public service TV channels.
‘Of course, being so successful we get many requests to lease our material, old tapes mostly, to clients whose budgets won’t stretch to a live group discussion. But as a matter of principle we never release tapes before the original discussion has taken place. After all, we believe that if you’re top of the league, you do have a responsibility to maintain high ethical standards.’
Roger Collis 1973 Werbung/Publicite; 1984 If my boss calls…