Even the biggest visionairs use focus groups
This weekend, the instructor, Yvette Quiazon told us about qualitative research. She did the focus groups for the biggest smartphone companies since 2007. They looked at the emotions linked to the phone, what people felt while and after using it and what others thought about the users.
Supercell — a problem that everybody wants
Yvette also worked for Supercell, the creator of blockbuster mobile gaming apps. Their problem was, they did not know anything about the players. Although Clash of Clans had a lot of players — they are now above 100m dowloads in Google play, Supercell did not know who they were talking to and how they should communicate. They also needed insights for product development. You can answer these questions with qualitative research, like one-on-one interviews or focus group interviews.
The two factors you must focus on
She highlighted two things that are most important in the interview:
1. The location.
Imagine you invite teenagers to a 32nd floor fancy office in downtown Manhattan and make them sit next to a mahagony table. You will get anything, but long, honest answers, because they won’t feel comfortable at all.
The best location is in the homes of the participants, because people are the most relaxed, open and honest in their own homes. If this is not possible, it should still be somewhere homey. This is why Yvette’s company has 3 locations suitable for focus groups around the U.S.
Two examples of Yvette’s company’s, Why-Q’s interview rooms:
2. The quality of the participants.
Qualify strictly.
Here are some similar qualifying question, to what Yvette showed us.
Here ”Terminate” means, that if someone answers a particular answer, they are out, we do not have to deal with their following answers.
This is what they pay attention to:
- don’t find people who make a living off focus groups and try to be recruited as much as possible for money, because they will believe they are experts and give distorted answers
- filter out the employees of the competition
- good respondents should have an opinion whithout being experts
- rectruit complex, predefined mix of participants
But how to recruit good respondents?
I asked, how they find good people: through acquaintances. If they go to a new city, let it be Shanghai or Tokyo, they look for an acquaintance living there and ask for a recommendation of an expert in the subject at hand (e.g. music or basketball or any other subject), who can recommend good participants.
Yvette told us, it is just as hard to convince low income participants to take part in interviews as it is Louis Vuitton buyers. Only the challenge is different. While the poor are afraid they are going to be used, or tricked into something, especially that the interview is in their own home and this is the fear that needs to be tended to, the Louis Vuitton buyers like to hear compliments, such as: “we chose you because we can tell you have a refined taste”.
The money or price given for participation is way bigger than I thought. It starts at $150 for a 1,5 hour group interview. But it could be as much as $300 for a 4 hour etnographic interview, which means it is a one-on-one interview in the home of the participant where the interviewer asks about the respondents daily life and behaviours,
