Editor’s note: War Stories is a semi-regular feature in which Art Shulman, president of Shulman Research, Van Nuys, Calif., presents humorous stories of life in the research trenches.
Remember the ancient tale of the messenger who was slain because the recipient didn't like the message? Well, in a modem-day variation, Melanie Payne of Payne & Partners reports a focus group where a respondent with negative reactions to a concept statement scrtmched the paper into a wad and threw it at her!
At the conclusion of the same group, another respondent said she didn’t realize the wall behind Payne was a mirror. The respondent thought it was another group of people.
Speaking of respondents not getting it, Lon Zimmerman of The Research & Planning Group tells about doing one-on-one testing for a client’s new TV campaign. He had the opportunity to visit with their ad agency’s creative director, who was not too happy because his very clever ads were failing to wow the respondents. After much time listening to the consumers, the creative director turned to Zimmerman and said, "What’s wrong with these people, that they don’t understand my spots?"
Carl McDaniel of University of Texas-Arlington reports a study he conducted where he was testing prototype dryer sheet fabric softeners. Consumers were given the product and asked to use it at home, and then respond to a telephone survey. The only problem was that the product was formulated incorrectly at the lab. When clothes came out of the dryer they all were a distinct shade of pink! One woman asked how in the world she could expect.her hnsband to wear pink blue jeans.
Another time McDaniel was testing two versions (canned and semi-moist) of dog food especially formulated for older, less active dogs. Consumers were supposed to feed their dog semi-moist for five days and then canned for five days to see which the dog preferred.
On the first day of the test a woman from Philadelphia called, alternating between hysteria and extreme anger. She had fed her registered boxer the semi-moist food, whereupon the dog had promptly died. She assured McDaniel that a lawsuit was imminent.
When their client was informed of the situation, management immediately offered to pay for an autopsy. Fortunately, it revealed that poor Rover had had a heart attack, which had nothing to do with the food.
While conducting focus groups for a particularly difficult-to-please moderator and group of clients, a researcher who prefers to remain anonymous hired a chef from one.of the area restaurants to prepare a gourmet meal in his firm’s kitchen.
What nobody realized was, something had been spilled in the oven the last time it had been used, and it didn’t get cleaned up. So when the chef heated up the oven, the spill began to burn off, causing quite a bit of smoke, which set off the fire alarm right in the middle of one of the groups. The entire building had to be evacuated while fire officials verified the source of the smoke. The client was not amused.
Market researchers often have to be quick-thinking. Pat Sabena of Patricia Sabena Qualitative Research Services reports that in one mixed-gender group of middle-aged gum chewers, a man made a rather crass analogy comparing chewing gum to the rhythm of sexual intercourse. When the other panelists glared at him and began to berate him for his comment, Sabena jumped in to align herself with him to prevent him from becoming a scapegoat.
"Why, John," she said, "that same idea came up in another group just yesterday. Isn’t that interesting!" The rest of the group relaxed. John shot her a look of gratitude and went home that day with his ego intact.
Sabena, by the way, launched her Web site a few years ago. Over the years many consumers have confused her Web site with that of the well-known high-tech firm Qualcomm. She’s gotten inquiries from all over the world, including several investment questions from little-old-lady-type investment clubs wanting to buy Qualcomm shares or get more information. While she likes her domain name, Sabena indicates she’d probably surrender it for big bucks if asked to do so by Qualcomm.