Why Your Focus Groups Are Failing and What to Do Instead

0:09Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantz, and my guest today is Jacqueline Lieberman. She's former chief strategy officer at Story Worldwide, a master of narrative-based marketing, blending human insights with brand truths for giants like Unilever, Google, and Lexus. She's now the founder of brand Crudo, which created the DNA method to help M &A executives and CMOs differentiate their brands by leveraging raw truths that can't be copied. Frustrated by the stale research methods, she also launched the Anti-Focus Group, exclusive dinners that deliver actionable insights from hard-to-reach audiences while doubling as premium brand experiences.

0:53So Jacqueline, welcome to the show. Thank you, John. I feel like that's the podcast. You did such a great job of the intro. We're done. Well, I just read what you gave me, to tell you the truth. So I take no credit for it other than being able to read, which Mrs. Morrison in first grade made sure of. There we go. All right. So let's define like what's an anti-focus group dinner look like? As the name suggests, it is the opposite of what a traditional focus group is. And because I am a believer that setting really matters. So when you think about traditional focus groups, they basically take two paths.

1:33the traditional route is that you think of this you know conference room a stale conference room with uh what feels like this double glass you know one-sided mirror that's there that makes you feel like you're in like an fbi interrogation room you know being detained for some reason and then you have a moderator who nine times out of ten really just looked at you know what they're supposed to be talking about and they don't really have a lot of skin in the game as to like what to do with the information. So there's that. And then the, you know, with the advent of Zoom and online panels, so now a lot of really where it's gone is that you're looking at a screen with a bunch of boxes that people are doing all day long anyway.

2:21And of course, people are multitasking while They're supposedly answering your questions and paying attention. So that's made the whole feedback loop even worse, in my opinion, you know. You've talked about all the limitations of those, but I mean, is the real limitation that we're not getting very much that's actionable out of these? I mean, is that why it's broken? Yeah. I mean, so being 30 years on the receiving end of those reports and that number is a real number, three, zero, because I'm the one that's supposed to do something with it. As a brand strategist, this is supposed to be a goldmine of information by which I'm supposed to use as a foundation for brand strategy, audience messaging.

3:07and you know because of that what I end up getting is I dig through a hundred pages of a poorly designed powerpoint and the crux of it is really about it tells you exactly what was said in the room which is helpful but it doesn't tell you why it was said it doesn't tell you really what the motivations are behind what some of the feedback was. And really what the anti-focus group dinners are about is they're designed to uncover key mindset and emotional triggers, right? So those are really the two foundational elements of marketing, mindset and emotion. So that's what this dinner setting is meant to unlock because immediately the professional armor comes off.

3:59as soon as they walk in the room. They're like, oh, this is like the best, this is the best part of my day right now. They're treated like VIPs from the second they walk in and they're sitting down to an amazing meal in an amazing setting. And I'm gently moderating the conversation. I'm not peppering them with, you know, a million questions, but it's new course, new question or new course, new sets of questions. And, you know, when we talk about things like, how do you build trust with people? Who do you love to collaborate with and why? Is there anything in your career that you haven't done yet that you really want to do?

4:39Just so we can understand them more as people and not as targets is really what the feedback is. So as I listen to those, it's almost more like networking questions than research questions, right? It's something you might typically want to uncover in a healthy networking conversation. But let's back up a little bit. So I'm assuming, or maybe I'm wrong, but are these mostly, if not exclusively B2B? Yeah, they seem to work for B2B. You know, it's not about, you know, let's look at the latest box of Cheerios and determine what the creative is. It's really more about business to business products and services.

5:16So I'm a customer or maybe a targeted customer. I get invited to this. Am I told I'm going to dinner and it's going to be research? And do you sometimes get a little, because it's unique, do you sometimes get a little, wait a minute, what? Well, we get mostly, the only wait a minute what is when we do disclose that they will be wearing microphones because this is research. You know, so this is the most productive dinner you'll ever sponsor all year. You know, it's like you have B2B dinners all the time and networking, right? And golf outings and all of this stuff. But when people walk in, we let them know in the invitation before they even respond that they will be mic'd up, that this is for research.

6:00And just like research in a focus group, they do get compensated for their time. So we want them to feel that their time spent was immensely valuable in every way. So I'm sure people forget about the microphones pretty quickly in, but I'm imagining like, okay, I can't burp, right? So, all right. So then you get all, I assume the microphone is because you're recording, right? So you get all of this recordings. How do you make sense out of them that in a way that you can actually address the objectives of the sponsor? Yes. Well, before I answer that directly, I will address the, so the mindset questions that I was saying before.

6:42Yeah, yeah. We do have dinners where it is a mix. It really depends on the goal of the dinner. So some goals of the dinner are to really understand their ideal customer way better in terms of their mindset and emotional triggers. So that could be the beginning of the dinner. The second half of the dinner could be very much of a brass tacks. Look, we would like you to respond to this messaging or this concept board. And I hand it out over dinner and say, you know, once we're done or we're looking at dessert and we say, okay, what do you think about this particular concept or this tagline? So we can get to brass tacks and cover that for sure.

7:20But we recommend that it's definitely going to be a balance of both mindset as well as the brass tacks to make it really worth the sponsoring company's while. You know, I've always contended for years that, you know, one of the best things a company can do is bring their customers together so that they can, hey, you know, I've had this problem. They solved that problem for me too. So there's networking and there's referrals that go on. People feel like champions now because you've, you know, treated them to dinner. Is there a little bit of a combination of, hey, we're like treating you special and getting research from you?

7:56Oh, for sure. Yeah, for sure. I mean, and making them feel valued is part of where the authentic feedback comes in, you know, Because when, you know, like I said, when the armor kind of comes down immediately, when you make this comfortable setting and you're breaking bread with people and introducing yourself and all of a sudden you'll get a very different piece of feedback if you ask the same question in a Zoom panel or in a conference room. you know you just do and and that's the the beauty of it and and with your question before about you know how do i weed through three hours of transcript but i've been interviewing stakeholders my entire career it's part of my process for brand strategy right so so before i even you know put pen to paper on a brand foundation work i ask and say give me the 10 15 people at your company who I should be talking to.

8:57So I've been doing, you know, trying to pull out the nuggets of what people say, you know, my whole career, and this is really no different. Yeah. Well, and I will say maybe you'll disagree with it, but this idea, but your strategist brain creates the questions in the conversation. But I do think some of the new tools that we have, AI tools, are very good at analysis if given the right data, right? For sure. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it helps with calling down transcriptions and, you know, maybe generating some themes. But, you know, I'm the only one that has my client in the back of my brain to understand really what they're looking for.

9:37So that's what I'm looking at when I look through those raw transcripts. So do you have an example maybe of a campaign or maybe you can't name names, but maybe talk a little bit about the impact of one of these dinners? Sure. Yeah, I can't name names or disclose, you know, but we've had dinners where it was first, it's like, okay, we need to really know our customers better because the current personas that we have just tell me the pain points of, you know, why they hate my technology, for instance. And I already knew that. So can you, can we really understand who they are as people? So that was dinner number one.

10:16Then we went back to work and said, OK, so this is the feedback from dinner number one. We worked on brand strategy and positioning. So we worked on actual messaging for campaigns and for websites like for homepages, product descriptions, things like that. And it was a piece of technology for a platform. and and then so dinner number two was very specific around what do you think about what this company is saying and how they're talking about their technology and that now that particular dinner informed what ended up on the website and what is in campaign development right now and you know so cmos are you know it's a way to really kind of keep a quarterly pulse on you know how their customers are evolving.

11:09Also how, you know, especially if it's a B2B technology company, you have a product roadmap. You're constantly putting out new technology. So that's always evolving. So, you know, they're using it as these quarterly check-ins to understand if they're on the right track. Do you see this approach being something that has specific uses or do you think this is just going to reshape the way brands do research, period? I mean, honestly, it's, I mean, there's nothing wrong with starting if brands are doing surveys, you know, things like that. I think there's always a use for surveys because it casts out a wide net.

11:45And surveys will always be there for that reason is to get a beat on, you know, what the mass market or what your mass consumer is saying if we want to send it out to a couple of hundred people. Now, when you really start to any qualitative is usually second after that survey is like, OK, here are the general themes that we saw that people are saying and what they care about. Let's dig in deeper. And usually that's where, you know, focus groups and online panels come in. But, you know, as I said before, when we're talking about really understanding, say, executive level insights, C-suite insights, they're not going to focus groups.

12:28They're not joining online panels. And maybe they'll be doing a survey, maybe. So this is the way to really understand what that B2B executive is really caring about and what motivates one. Have you heard from clients that have done, I don't know, let's call it traditional as opposed to anti-focus group? Have you heard from some that say, wow, this is different? Or what's been the feedback? Oh, yeah. I mean, I can't. So the feedback from clients, and I'll talk about the guests in a minute, but what clients are really loving is the fact that there is this brand halo effect that happens. That's that intangible effect of when people are leaving on a high.

13:12So even if they didn't know the sponsoring brand coming in, you know, we disclose who the sponsoring company is. But even if they weren't familiar with it at first, say, now they're leaving the room, understanding them better, leaving on a high, networking and exchanging numbers with other guests. So it became like this peer-to-peer exchange dinner by default. and you can't beat getting a beautifully designed 15 to 20 page chock full of actionable insights where we go here's the main insight here's the main implication and here's the very specific marketing opportunity you get that within 10 days not a month not six weeks not anything that you need like well can we look at this or that can you cut the data this way it's 10 days they get exactly what they need to act on.

14:05And that's what they've been loving. So I heard you say that they may not know the brand. So these are not customers. I just made an assumption that they're interviewing customers or having customers at these. It's a little, it's been both. So some it's been, let's invite our existing pool of, of customers. And then there's been, you know what, we need to just recruit our existing profile and of people who may or may not know us, but we're going to invite them to dinner anyway. So So, and, you know, there's a lot of gold in inviting those types of guests as well. So there are some logistics, right?

14:39They have to be in the room, right? So do you, you know, a lot of B2B brands, their clients might be all over the country, all over the world. So does that add a layer of logistics and cost, I assume, right? For sure. Yeah. I mean, I think really what we do is we start with the sponsoring company. Everybody has a sales gen, demand gen lead list. So everybody has warm leads, hot leads. We start there and say, okay, who are they? Can we get them in a specific geo? And then once we get the geography down, then we pick the 20 that really will move the needle for the sponsoring company. and then, you know, we take care of all the logistics from there, which is as soon as I have those 15 to 20 people, then we start the outreach.

15:33And I have to say the, you know, the venue is also very important because, again, if we want people to come, we want them to be excited about that it's time well spent. So it's in a venue that either they've heard about, been there before, or someplace that they've always wanted to go and just haven't been. So the venue is definitely a draw. And that's why, you know, we really insist on keeping the quality very high because we want it to be, you know, really well worth their time, you know, when they enter. So is this something in your mind that you could write a book about, that you could teach, that you could certify other people to do?

16:12Or do you have any plans to scale it beyond your work? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I've thought about a book, at least, in thinking about just kind of the magic that happens when you break bread with people around the table and what you kind of learn from that. Because guests come in as complete strangers and then they leave almost as friends. I mean, they're hugging me at the end, you know, taking selfies with a group selfies of all of us. They're exchanging information. we connect on LinkedIn and every single person who on LinkedIn have has commented on any of my posts if they were a guest they they say I mean they don't here's the other thing they haven't just commented like one sentence like oh that was great paragraphs I'm getting paragraphs of comments saying this was unlike anything I've ever experienced you know it was a way that we opened up I keep in touch with the people around the table that I met that night now on a consistent basis.

17:11So it's a really nice ripple effect that happens after that particular dinner, which feels great. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Jacqueline, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by and tell us a little bit about what you're working on. Is there any place you'd invite people to find out more about your work or certainly about your group dinners? Yeah, absolutely. They can just go to brandcrudo.com. There's an anti-focus group tab right there and they could find out more info. I'm going to show my ignorance here. And I'm sure you told me the last time you were on the show, what's the significance of the word?

17:46Brand Crudo? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So part of the DNA method of what I uncover for brands to help outmaneuver their competition is that I believe that every brand has a raw truth, you know, and that's part of their DNA. So that's where Crudo came from. And that's where I help them uncover and tell to the world through strategy. Again, appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road. Awesome. Thank you, John. Thank you so much for having me.