Editor’s note: "War Stories" is a regular feature in which Art Shulman, president of Shulman Research, Van Nuys, Calif., presents humorous stories of life in the research trenches.
Cary Silvers of Modern Maturity magazine reports conducting a focus group with seniors on magazines. A particular respondent always provided the same answer to all the questions he was asked: For example, when asked why he read a particular magazine, he explained, "Because Jesus told me to." When asked why he read particular articles within the magazine, again, "Because Jesus told me to."
This answer was not very helpful to the client, who realized in order to reach this type of respondent, he’d have to target Jesus in advertising.
A lot of interesting people show up at focus groups. Moderator Saul Cohen of Saul Cohen & Associates reports conducting a chewing tobacco group, where one of his respondents was man weighing over 400 lbs., dressed in studded leather, who revealed that Mu'ammar Khaddafi was his hero!
Wonder how often the following happens, as it did to an unnamed moderator: after being told a focus session was being videotaped, a woman jumped up, covered her face, and ran out of the facility, stating she could not participate in the session if it was taped!
A criminal? An Amish person? A terribly vain individual?
Janet Pizzarello from Sorensen Associates recently found again how shoppers at the point-of-purchase are willing to be really honest in answering survey questions. In an observation and in-store intercept study, consumers were being interviewed about the reasons they purchased certain products from the infant toy sections of a mass merchandiser. One man explained, "My wife just dropped our $300 digital phone in our swimming pool and I was trying to fred a toy phone juvenile enough to give her as a Christmas present. I looked at the Barney phones but they weren't childish enough. This one from Fisher-Price is just perfect!"
Researcher Jag Nair reports a focus group he was involved with, led by a female moderator, where one male participant, for reasons unknown to the moderator, kept talking about his sex life. She tried to change the subject, but he persisted. She finally succeeded when she asked what the product category under investigation had to do with his sex life. He couldn’t muster a response.
Some people think everything has to do with sex. Also, some wives of columnists think that’s the way their husbands think. [Some editors and some readers might agree with some wives of columnists. - Ed.]
Doug Conwell of the Tampa Tribune tells about a potential respondent who told the interviewer that she couldn t do a survey because she was naked. In my book, this is not a good reason for not participating in a survey, unless it’s a door-to-door survey. Or a mall intercept.
Moderator Louise Kroot-Haukka reports conducting a group with women - at least they were all dressed like women - including one person Haukka was sure wasn’t a woman. Or not all woman. Haukka still doesn’t know if her respondent was a transvestite, a cross-dresser, or a hermaphrodite. Haukka reports that he/she was a wonderful respondent who other respondents looked up to, at least in terms of opinions of the food category they were discussing.
Haukka also reports conducting a group session with men where consumers had to taste a food product served in individual bowls. As they began eating, one man pointed out, "It’s moving!" Haukka thought the movement was simply liquid in the bowl, but then others in the group also noticed what turned out to be small bugs crawling in the bowls.
Soon, the discussion inevitably turned to the extra protein the product now contained. After Haukka explained that the bugs weren’t supposed to be there, the conversation went on as normal.
The men did cease tasting the product, however.