Q. How do you test ad concepts in Focus Groups?

A.There are several ways to do this, depending mostly on how finished your ad concepts are.

I recently used Focus Group Discussions to test three possible campaigns for an existing product. Each of the campaigns had two executions, all fairly finished marker drawings. The purpose of the research was not to pick one of the three, but to generate as much learning as possible about what the three campaigns were communicating to the target audience — and how the target audience felt about what each of the ads said to them.

The six executions were shown to them one at a time, with respondents receiving a color copy of each one. Before saying anything aloud, they were asked to mark those elements that they liked and disliked on the ad itself (their own copy of it) and to answer a few written questions about the execution. After they had done this, the executions were discussed by the group.

The written exercise was included in order to allow each respondent to experience the ads on his/her own before there was “crowd comment” about them. If this isn’t done, those people who particularly like or dislike an execution can strongly affect the others whose opinions aren’t as quickly formed or strongly held. When each has committed their own thoughts and opinions to writing individually, the respondents are more likely to make their own individual opinions heard.

Do you have a comment or research-related question? Send it to me for future FAQs!