Editor's note: Paul A. Scipione is the author of A Nation of Numbers, a consumer psychologist and former professor of marketing at Montclair State University. https://www.paramountbooks.com/nation-numbers  

Sometimes marketing research projects take place in challenging places. Take for example the three days I spent with crew members aboard a U.S. nuclear submarine (submerged!) and another among Greyhound passengers on buses between Boston, New York and Washington, D.C. But the one that takes the cake was a study I conducted around 2010 for a small savings and loan in upstate N.Y. that wanted insight on how to expand. 

Using focus groups to identify opportunity

After I retired from my professorship at Montclair State University, I continued teaching courses in marketing research and consumer behavior with the goal of giving my students real world experience. My client, Finger Lakes Federal Credit Union, had hit a ceiling on new accounts and wanted to open new branches, preferably where there were no competitors. We looked around and were able to identify one truly unique place – the New York State Department of Correctional Services Mid-State Correctional Institutes. At the time, the rural community was home to less than a thousand people. So how could there possibly be a need for a new savings and loan company in such a tiny place? Well, the cluster of three state prisons, a large correctional institution in New York, employing more than 600 people.

My marketing research students and I met with the team at Finger Lakes Federal Credit Union to develop study objectives as items for the topic guide. We also designed the sample – a total of 45 employees, selected proportionately among all the categories of employees (ranging from guards to food service, medics and administration). To allot for the shift work that exists in prisons, we designated 15 participants in each of the three focus groups – 12 primary participants and three back-ups – with separate groups to be held for 90 minutes during each of the three daily eight-hour shifts. Yes, that means moderating 8 a.m., 4 p.m. and 12 a.m.! The prison administration provided security, spacious meeting rooms, audiotaping and food and beverages. 

Invitations went out and all three prison focus groups were held the following week. The prison employees were very open during the process and overwhelmingly positive about using a new Finger Lakes Federal Credit Union mini-branch within the admin building at NYSMSCI, which would operate with a live teller during the day shift and via a secure ATM machine the other two shifts.Â