How to get to the truth in focus groups
People hold back the truth for various reasons. It may not matter to them, they don’t want to disappoint or they may want to believe what they say is true. To get to the truth is to understand how consumers communicate and to establish the underlying motivations for lying or providing half-truths. This is where genuine insight emerges. Have we uncovered a secret? Are we intruding on highly sensitive territory, or have we just caught the respondent in a lie told through nervousness, as a cover-up or because they genuinely want to help the study?
Populist books like Daniel Kahneman’s called into question the value of focus groups, especially when it comes to
