Focus Groups

Focus Groups provide rich qualitative data on market and customer perceptions for such tasks as product development and testing, advertising testing, customer surveys, feasibility analysis, and brand image development

Focus Groups provide rich qualitative data on market and customer perceptions for such tasks as product development and testing, advertising testing, consumer surveys, feasibility analysis, and brand image development.

A brief managerial guide on running focus groups in Asia is available, but this page focuses on our services.

OPC runs focus groups in almost all countries in Asia and key overseas customer markets. When focus groups are run by associate agencies or third parties, moderators are trained in our specific methods. Considerable care is given to selecting moderators who can most easily win a rapport with participants, particularly when there are ethnic, race, or gender considerations. In most cases, we recommend running separate groups for each group. Together, focus group moderators speak most of the major Asian languages and dialects and represent a broad range of gender, age groups, and classes.

Our base in Asia's English speaking, and most cost-effective regional base means that our costs are highly competitive while providing what we feel are the highest quality results in the field. Development and testing of questionnaires, screeners, and other material is conducted in Malaysia, in liason with our Field Research Supervisors in the appropriate country and the client. Our own Field Research Supervisors supervise the data collection which is conducted through associate market research agencies in each country. Data analysis (of quantitative and qualitative data) is conducted in Malaysia by our Senior Researchers and Directors. As well as expected and traditional analysis, they utilise custom techniques developed in Asia over 10 years to extract key concepts including emotional attachment, brand images, and other measures of "affect". Translation is conducted either at the field location or our by our own translators in Malaysia.

A major benefit to clients is that for multi-country projects, you need only work with one research provider, which ensures techniques are standardised over all markets. We can also assist with organizing itineraries should you require to be on the spot to observe focus groups in action, and avail yourself of simultaneous translation services. An English speaking senior researcher with over 15 years experience in Asia is always appointed to lead the whole project, - available daily by email or phone to answer questions and move the project forward.

As we do not employ field researchers in-house, we are not constrained to suggest research methods which reflect our existing research staff and resources. We are able to choose the most appropriate staff and facilities from a network of several hundred field research personnel. In Asia many of the finest moderators, for example, work independently to research agencies.

The focus group method is a depth technique, which seeks to elicit rich qualitative data about a participant's experience with a product, service or concept. Generally focus groups consist of 6 to 8 participants and a moderator who ensures the correct questions are asked and facilitates the discussion process. They usually run for around 60 minutes.

Given the small number of participants (or "subjects" in research-speak), data from focus groups can not be generalised to large populations as structured surveys using objective sampling techniques can. However, running 2 or 3 focus groups with varied participants from the same target groups can provide an indication of the reliability of the results.

A raw text verbatim transcript of the proceedings of each focus group are provided as well as either audio or video tapes.

OPC's custom text analysis techniques extract the key salient points from the transcripts, ready for use on further analysis or in reports.

Focus Groups are not a cheap methodology. Analysis of qualitative material takes time, participants need to be paid incentives to attend, recording and other facilities are required, and moderation is a highly professional job. Hoever, costs vary substantially depending on the type of participants (eg: consumer or industrial and level), and location. Translation, when required, also adds to the cost. Groups in India, Malaysia, and Indonesia involve less cost, Singapore, Thailand, Indo-Chinese countries, Australia, New Zealand, and US/Canada are moderate, while costs for groups in Japan, China, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan and most European countries (including Great Britain) can be quite high.

Focus Groups are a high value technique for any exercise which requires the depth, detail and richness of subjective data that such a qualitative technique provides. We use them extensively for advertising testing, brand image development, and product/service testing.