You’re Going to Tell Me the Truth…About my Brand!

From the ‘oh my god you must be joking’ series of entries on this blog, one of the very few apparently serious things that got me laughing my arse off just because I’ve heard so much crap about focus groups, research and other things it’s so bad it’s almost funny now. I’ve been talking about this with my (step) mum and dad who work in the industry and we’ve been thinking about the grim prospect of this thing going more mainstream because it sounds like a simple, efficient solution for when you’re in a rut and can’t think of anything imaginative to do with your target audience. And because my dad works for a company that does research, this was news of the day almost.

Like one of those ads from the 60s, if your average focus group doesn’t work you can just bring in hypnosis! Guaranteed, thirty day money back if you’re not satisfied with the product. Brandweek has this very interesting piece about the whole thing and it’ll be in my del.icio.us post from midnight, as per usual.

It’s amazing because it’s been going on for ages.

“Hypnosis helped get past the cliches. We needed the conversation to get to a deeper, more emotional place.”

And you’re going to use hypnosis because you’re too much of a douche to get things done the regular way, eh? Why? Because…

• Most people are afraid to say the things they’re actually thinking of
• People will always try to please the person asking the question so they’ll say yes. Unless you’re a cynic, case in which ‘yes’ is never the answer.
• People forget things anyway, in various ways, by
  • telescoping (inaccurate recall of time)
  • averaging (normalising an experience)
  • omitting (leaving out facts)

Why? Who knows why half of adults don’t remember ads they’ve seen in the past thirty days? Because of time, because of interference (new things pushing out old things, Homer Simpson style or old things they’ve learnt getting in the way of new things). Some questions are just there. What if the ad isn’t entertaining enough? Or if it’s entertaining it’s only that and that is all there is to it.

“The first 25 minutes are dedicated to introducing them to the process and getting them relaxed. Once they are in an “alpha” state of relaxation, the hypnotist will ask them individually about topics like the first time they experienced a product. Four sessions cost about the same as a typical round of focus groups ($50,000-75,000).

It’s not for every client though, said Grau: “Some aren’t comfortable with it. To some extent there could be some ethical concerns associated it.”"

This article sounds like it was written in the sixties to be honest, or to be a nice person, more like the eighties. This is target audience, we call said audience to a room with a table and chairs around it, sit down, have a cuppa (this is rather new), someone in a suit will ask them questions, they will answer and we all leave the room when the time is up. Only later we’ve realised – are we asking the right questions? Are they telling the truth? Is it really what they’re thinking? Have we missed the obvious? That would apply to Volvo, what a shocker, a car that is labelled as ’safe’ makes you feel like you’re middle-aged! Which is the only time you start thinking about safety in your life, shocking news indeed, they might be very shocked to know things that have been going on around the internet for ages now, that Porsche is a sign of menopause or midlife crisis and not adrenaline and young, rich people.

“As you’ll see, you get much more emotional content out of hypnotized people. With this sort of information, you’re in a position to recommend some options to your clients that you otherwise might not have thought of.“

Hypnotizing slackers for Starbucks, and other visionary acts of marketing research

How about rethinking the damn focus group to start with? The questions? The location? Too complicated and inconvenient maybe! Whatwouldgeorgeparkersay.com? The douchenozzles should get their focus groups drunk instead, they’d waste a lot less money! See, this is why my blog is so filthy. Cunts!