Our fourth meeting, we took a look at focus groups and projective techniques. We didn’t have an assigned article this week, but instead focused on the wisdom of Belk, Fischer, and Kozinet’s contained inside ‘Qualitative Consumer & Marketing Research.’
In our reading, we learned about the optimal size of focus groups (6-12), how they should be generally homogeneous, and that they should always be carefully transcribed. We also learned about how projective methods allow consumers to say the things that are hard to say directly by placing their feelings onto other objects.
Our meeting was greatly enhanced by a visit from the wonderful Mary Anne Raymond, who is the Department Chair of Marketing at Clemson. She spoke to us about her wealth of experience with focus groups and all of the interesting ones she has conducted in her career. She was very informative and answered all of our questions.
We ended our meeting with another session of interviews, and I think we all concluded that it gets easier with every practice run!”
Kaitlyn, February 2015
