Mitch Joel’s Six Pixels of Separation is a great read. Whether for your business or personal online presence, it underscores the importance of harnessing the web’s hyperconnectedness to build your brand. A former music journalist, Joel himself is a poster child for the book’s material, giving several examples of how he used today’s digital channels to open doors to many rewarding career opportunities.Joel cites WIRED editor Chris Anderson’s maxim that brands are fast becoming defined by their first page of search results. With so much customer interaction and feedback taking place online, many traditional market research techniques are becoming antiquated. For example, Joel believes focus groups, so long a mainstay of qualitative research, are much less useful than they once were. He writes: “The web provides the ultimate focus group (and it’s free). It’s authentic because you’re not locking people in a room and feeding them pizza to get their opinion. They’re expressing themselves (good, bad, and neutral) without being solicited, and they’re talking online with passion. Can you really put a price on that? Can you really afford not to be listening?” (p. 63).
Critics of focus groups have long argued that their legitimacy can be compromised by several factors; groupthink, biased or unrealistic questioning, even the interrogatory nature of discussions to name a few. But what does the nature of today’s growing digital realm mean for the future of groups? Will researchers conduct more online “chat” style groups? Will brands incorporate more feedback sites like Starbucks’ hugely successful mystarbucksidea? The java giant has created a fast, cost-effective method of mining the consumer brain trust for useful insights and opinions.
What do you think? In this digital age where consumer behavior and interaction is more easily measured, is there still room for traditional focus groups? Are they headed towards oblivion, or can they still serve a purpose?
