Why we need focus groups?

Essay by dawmi3University, Bachelor'sB, March 2007

download word file, 5 pages 2.2

A focus group is a form of qualitative research in which a group of people is asked about their attitude towards a concept, idea, advertisement, product or packaging (Blankenship et al.1999).

In the real world of marketing research and management, focus groups are one of the most popular techniques used by marketers. Jennifer (2005) defines the focus group as a form of qualitative research in which a group of people is asked about their attitude towards a product, concept, advertisement, idea or packaging. There are normally 8 to 10 members of the group. A focus group is headed by one moderator to keep track of discussion and make sure that every member of the group takes part in the commitment. Focus groups are not only intended to help researchers develop hypotheses and questionnaire components as an first step in the research process, but it is also used in applied research as a strategy for collecting data, especially when doing qualitative research to get subjective experiences from people.(Sullivan,

2001) Focus groups are in particular used to investigate complex behavior in the same time discover how different groups think ,what opinions they have and how they feel.(Evalued: Focus Groups 2005).

As mentioned above, there are many advantages of using focus groups. One biggest advantage is that it is possible that companies and researchers evaluate their products and services by information from focus groups in real life. It is no doubt that focus groups are regarded as the majority of the public so that companies and researchers use the information as the voice of the public.(Zikmund & William 2003, p.126-129)

Even though there are many advantages in using focus group, a few disadvantages exist in some ways. First of all, irrelevant and disagreements in discussion can be a disadvantage. It is because of...