Focus groups in Kazakhstan

“Many men, many minds” and I want to know your personal opinion” – that’s the message a good moderator maintains afloat throughout a focus group.

Focus group is a qualitative method in the form of an open discussion that allows to reveal opinions of a target group about a product or service. A group interview is administered on the basis of a preliminary developed scenario that participants are unaware of.

Focus groups should be used if it required to:

• study consumer attitude to products, brands, companies, and services
• develop a strategy on the product or service positioning
• to determine negative characteristics/disadvantages of products/services in perception of consumers
• identify a consumer profile and consumer peculiarities
• determine a product/service consumption pattern
• find new ideas on the development of products/brands/services;
• test new products/services for the feasibility analysis
• test advertising materials
• verify hypothesis, reveal existing stereotypes
• identify image characteristics of a company/product

Advantages of the FGD method

The main advantage of this method is relaxed atmosphere, application of various creative techniques that enable spontaneous and open discussion that generates new ideas.

Disadvantages of the FGD method

The main disadvantage is the lack of representativeness. The number of participants can not be representative of all the consumers of a product or service.