Focus groups have been getting a bad rap recently. Bart Cleveland (Small Agency Diary) at Ad Age tells a great story about focus groups, with a twist. Testing a concept with the dreaded focus group, they were pleasantly surprised to find the group gave it a high score, only to have the ad nixed by the client. Why? The CMO didn’t like the idea!

We see it all the time. The idea is ‘internally tested’ by passing it around to important people on the org chart, even though they may not even resemble the audience at whom it is directed. This is not a focus group. (There’s a better term for it: the kiss of death).

Malcolm Gladwell of Cluetrain fame makes the point (check this interview at IT Conversations) in Blink that great ideas are maimed by asking people the wrong questions, citing the the Pepsi-challenge, iPod and the Aeron Chair. The latter failed very badly when ‘tested’ because the focus of the focus group was all wrong, and people didn’t have the vocabulary to describe what they liked, or hated; they therefore made things up. If Herman Miller listened to its focus group’s recommendations, they would have produced a pathetic chair, based on ‘what customers wanted’ he says.

Which brings us back to knowing our audience. Too often marketing is about producing stuff, or going after market share. How about if marketing was all about digging deeper, and asking the right questions?