Letters: Ethnography and Focus Groups: Mutually Exclusive?

I commend Brandweek for its article "A Fresh Look at Focus Groups" (Nov. 3), which looked at the growing use of ethnography in market research. Today, more than ever, agencies need to rely on observational approaches to better understand what a consumer really thinks or feels. Observing how products and brands are actually used in context versus relying on people's filtered recall in focus group settings gives a more accurate portrayal of the brand's true or "lived" experience with consumers.

The challenge, however, as ethnography becomes popularized, is to know how to interpret the data. This is where the professional anthropologist, trained in theories of human behavior, comes in. Ethnography is not just about observing, but also interpreting those observations within the context of "webs of significance that man himself has spun."

[Clifford] Geertz, the father of interpretive anthropology, queries, "When is a wink, a wink?" (meaning a flirtatious advance) and not a parody of something, a mimicry of someone, part of a performance or simply an eye irritation?

In the end, the real challenge of using any qualitative tool, albeit focus groups or ethnography, is to skillfully understand what exactly is being observed, and what exactly it means.

Timothy Malefyt, Ph.D.

Director of Cultural Discoveries, BBDO, New York



"A Fresh Look at Focus Groups" by Todd Wasserman is anything but.

It clearly is written from the slant of bashing focus groups and getting on the ethnography bandwagon. Certainly ethnography has great value as a research tool but this is not to say that focus groups are not useful as well. The article totally distorted the findings of the study Jon Last of Golf Digest and I conducted on clients' views of focus groups. Wasserman states that "many" of the clients interviewed "were critical" of the technique. We found just the opposite: most were highly favorable. We asked respondents to provide us with the methodology's shortfalls as well as its benefits and a few brought up negatives. The author quoted a few clients who voiced criticisms while ignoring the overall results.

Our study was primarily open-ended, with clients expressing their views in their own words. Among their responses:

• Nearly 90% indicated that the relevance of the traditional focus group is unchanged (64%) or greater (25%) today than it was half a decade ago.

• Two-thirds of those surveyed indicated that they plan to continue using the method as much over the next few years as they have in the recent past. An additional 6% of respondents anticipate greater use of focus groups, while 29% will use them slightly (26%) or significantly (3%) less.

Clearly one of the limitations of focus groups and qualitative research in general is that its findings are largely directional, and our research with researchers is subject to that caveat as well. However, our study did indeed strongly suggest that, to paraphrase Mark Twain, "reports of focus groups' demise are clearly premature." In fact, they are quite alive and well. Our study also shows growing client interest in ethnography but, unfortunately, Wasserman's article did not present the whole picture of our findings.

Judy Langer

svp/dir-Roper/Langer Qualitative, RoperASW

Jon Last

vp-corporate marketing & research,

The Golf Digest Companies



Wasserman responds: It's obvious that most marketers continue to use focus groups and find them indispensible. Ethnography was clearly presented as an adjunct to traditional focus groups, not a replacement. Yes, about a dozen people criticized focus groups in the RoperASW study, which included a total of 60 respondents; hence "several" may have been a more accurate descriptor. However, the defenders of focus groups are also given their due, as the story notes that companies are "fighting back" by making their facilities more like living rooms, bars, etc. To take away from the article that the focus group is dead is the result of a willful misreading.