Marketing in Real Life

Not that I watch the Celebrity Apprentice (cough, cough), or really expected more, but its scary how much this week's episode butchered the concept of focus groups as they prepared to pitch their ideas for a new graphic novel style mascot for Zappos .com. Not to go all research snob on you, but at a minimum: 1) They should have had a moderator or at least a discussion guide 2) They should have been talking Zappos customers and prospects, not comic book fans 3) They should have had something to show participants or they should have conducted ideation exercises Seriously, I shouldn't have expected more. But it irks me when research is so poorly displayed in popular culture. At least they have a better writeup on the value of focus groups on the web site. Watch for yourself at: http://www.nbc.com/the-celebrity-apprentice/video/clips/week-2-athenas-focus-group/1053921/

While some people still are still hesitant about online qualitative research, our friends at Maritz Research have layed out some of the most viable options, including their qual-quant Dynamic Insights (powered by Invoke) offering. Certainly there are still times when focus groups or one on one interviews serve the need, but don't forget that as the internet and internet usage evolves it is creating more and more opportunities to get great insights from consumers online. Read the article here.