Why, if you’re a Food Business, Focus Groups WON’T help you focus

In-store Research will…

In focus groups we lie about how much organic produce we buy (“Always, every week”), we boast about how often we cook (“I make everything from scratch”) and we worry about what the other 7 strangers think of us in that over-heated front room in Croydon or glacially air-conditioned one-way mirrored viewing facility. We get worried when we are asked for detail on our shopping, so we fake our responses to look good and please the person moderating the session.

Why not ask people what they think when they are actually shopping? In the store? With a whole fixture in front of them full of relevant products that they know, instead of just five packs in research on a table in Cheam, they can physically show you what attracts them on the shelf, not try to remember it.

Shoppers are marketing-savvy now, they can easily identify new interesting products, explain failing products they have lost interest in, and identify what feels fresh, new and attractive to them. One peek in their shopping basket or cart will mean you can verify their claim that they “buy organic chicken regularly”, and show you if they really are price-sensitive.

If you do this kind of research, whether you are a food producer or a marketing manager for a food brand, you’ll get a jump on all the others “just doing focus groups.” You’ll move onto the next level before your competitors get there. Food and drink in the supermarket is an ever-changing dynamic environment where the entrant of a new product into a category, a huge multinational food brand “buying space on the shelf”, or the de-listing of another can change consumer views on that category of food overnight. If you are in-store you can spot this happening and grasp the opportunity. In focus groups, you wouldn’t spot these trends, because there, shoppers’ recall is re-constructed, often fictional and much hazier.

Shoppers can examine price, packaging, positioning and product for you,in detail, so that you can make the tweaks that mean your product flies off the shelf to the check out.

So bin those expensive focus groups, dress up warm, and check out the chilled aisles — see you there!