Here’s the top 19 signs your focus group is quickly collapsing into abject failure and will be completely unusable for consumer research, message testing, product verification or concept formulation:

  • From an arriving participant: “Hey! I used to be a 1-900 operator for this place!”
  • The clients hold up the session waiting for the muffin plate to arrive.
  • The recruitment coordinator works from the bus depot.
  • A fantasy sports fan hijacks every idea with a poorly thought-out sports analogy.
  • I’m not saying it’s a bargain basement facility, but the viewing room has an electric blind that has to be fed quarters to stay up.
  • Your moderator shows up, and he’s in a Leafs jersey.
  • The participants are handed Hello Kitty knockoff pens and notepads.
  • There’s more than one socially conscious teacher at the table.
  • The moderator starts off by saying “Most of you know the drill …”
  • The viewing area for agency types is behind an old patio door. From a mobile home. With a “Texas Kixass” sticker on it.
  • Five words: retiree with a hearing aid.
  • The testing facility uses old pieces of drywall for whiteboards.
  • At the end of the video clip you’re testing - at great expense - more than one participant refers to “the money shot.”
  • Participants who answer in complete sentences are handed Wal-Mart gift cards.
  • More than three instances of someone saying “I’ll tell you what I think …”
  • Your moderator’s Steve McClaren (for the Brits among us).
  • “I know this product! I think my stepmama’s suing ya’ll!”
  • In the facility’s waiting room, you can make an extra ten bucks with only “a twist of the wrist.”
  • One of the participants asks who will sign for her high school volunteer credit.

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