2. What is a 'focus group'?
A focus group is the most grass-roots way you can learn about your media business. By gathering
a select group of regular people together, you can find out how your company is perceived
versus your competition. The answers you get can be a road map as you build your brand.
3. Our focus group.
We had a focus group for our music video, which we filmed and referred back to afterwards,
analyzing the key points made. This enabled us to co-operate with the group whilst collecting
data, giving them our full attention and listen to what they were saying, as well as
communicating with them on the matter.
We wanted to find out if we had achieved our goal in creating a well rounded organic artist, and
make successful products that our audiences could enjoy, understand, and relate to.
We also wanted to make sure that we had not over looked any mistakes or parts of our
campaign that didnt match eachother.
4. What we learnt.
We learned from the focus group that our artist was successfully organic, however the song
choice may have led them to believe otherwise. This I saw as a positive because our song would
make it to the charts, to spreadable, and appeal to wider ranges, but the artist can be seen as
more likeable and relatable to audiences.
There is a general consensus that having the artist in the video was both good and bad. It is
positive as we are able to show him in the studio playing and singing his song, and in that way
demonstrating to viewers that he is ultimately authentic, and it shows that he is musically
talented and had made his own music. Further, we can dress him in a casual low key outfit that
would further this opinion. As well as this, he is shown to be outdoors and in naturalistic
locations, highlighting the organic feel.
However, it is negative, as the artist is not being sold on his look, but on his music, and therefore
this can be misconceiving to viewers, who may be led to believe he is being sold synthetically.
5. Our group moderator.
Finding a good focus group moderator is critical. We asked Mr. Wood to come and sit in the
focus group, keeping the discussion flowing, and keeping the group on track. He was able to
successfully draw out the information from the participants in a discussion format. You can see
him getting the discussion flowing in the beginning of the short clip (provided below).
6. The participants.
For the focus group, we used random selection, asking whoever we came across at the time to
answer questions, therefore giving us an unbiased sample of people who would look at our
product or idea and give honest, impartial feedback.
7. Types of research.
When we gathered our feedback, we aimed to use both quantitative and qualitative research,
giving us a wide variety of data to analyze, in every form.
This was useful for us because it gave both hard numerical statistics, and also opinions which are
individual and personalised.
8. Qualitative research.
Qualitative research gathers information that is not in numerical form. For example, open ended
questionnaires, unstructured interviews, and unstructured observations. Qualitative data is
typically descriptive and as such is harder to analyze than quantitative data.
Qualitative research is useful for studies at the individual level and to find out in depth the ways
in which people think or feel.
A good example of a qualitative research method would be unstructured and group interviews
which generate data through the use of open ended questions. This allows respondents to talk
in depth about their opinions on the topic in their own words. This helps the researcher develop
a real understanding of the persons views on the topic.
We used group interviews to gather qualitative information.
9. Quantitative research.
Quantitative research gathers data in numerical form which can be put into categories or in rank
order, or measured in units of measurement. This type of data can be used to construct graphs
and tables of raw data. Research methods like observations and questionnaires can produces
both quantitative and qualitative data.
