Focus Group

Focus groups are among the best-known methods in qualitative market research. A small group talks about a topic, a product or an idea. A moderator guides the conversation. A session usually lasts one to two hours. Clients often follow the discussion from behind a one-way mirror or via video.

What makes a good focus group

Open conversation instead of question and answer: The best insights emerge when participants talk to each other. Not when they answer questions one after another.

Interaction and energy: Where do participants disagree? Where does it get lively, where quiet? Group dynamics are just as important an indicator as what is said.

Experienced moderation: It keeps the conversation open. It gives quieter participants room and reins in those who dominate.

What focus groups are suited for

Understanding motives: What lies behind attitudes and decisions?

Testing ideas early: How do people react to new concepts?

The target group's language: Which words do people use to describe a topic?

Developing hypotheses: Focus groups provide the questions for later quantitative studies.

Focus groups are not mini-quant

Focus groups are about the why, not the how many. Still, results are sometimes counted: "Five out of eight participants liked the concept." Such figures are not statistically robust. The sample is too small for that. If you need frequencies, follow up with a quantitative survey.

Where the limits are

Group pressure: Individual opinions can shape the whole group.

Sensitive topics: People are reluctant to talk about some things in front of others. Individual interviews, dyads or triads are better then.

Saying is not doing: What is said in the group is not always what people do.

How CURTH+ROTH works

International studies involve a trade-off. Open conversations unfold differently in every country. But comparing countries requires comparable structures.

This is how we solve it: we conduct the conversations openly. An AI then maps the findings to a shared framework. The moderation team then reviews this mapping. Because even the best AI does not always have enough world knowledge to classify everything correctly.

We always use human moderators, including for online groups. Only people understand all the nuances. And only they can correctly interpret disturbances in the conversation. In the spirit of Ruth Cohn's Theme-Centered Interaction (TCI): disturbances take precedence.

AI moderation still has its place. In quantitative surveys, it can ask targeted follow-up questions on open answers. And it makes voice-based quantitative interviews possible.

More on our approach: "Qualitative market research and AI: Why people stay at the center".