I attended my first ever advertising focus group - a virgin audience member.
Fascinating! We watched batches of TV adverts, rated them in real time on a handheld turning knob, and then answered some questions on each batch. I have to laugh. I don't know what they do with the information, but the whole process seems so deeply flawed.
Firstly, it is so apparent the difference between a "good" advert and an advert which might actually sell something. We had to rate for both together. So there was no room for nice advert, wouldn't buy it. There were a few of those questions on the written feedback where we could rate the advert highly but not the product. Secondly, there's a huge difference between rating an advert in a focus group and seeing it at home on TV. I reckon from tonight and playing with my knob, I could formulate an advert which would do very well in a focus group but means sod all in the real world.
Tonight told me so much about how most adverts mildly interest me, but that has very little to do with my purchasing decisions and what a complete sham and waste of money and resource advertising is. I buy on function and design, I really do. I had a look round the house a while back and realised almost everything is based on function, and not emotion or a pretty lady on the screen. Of course I was turning my knob up tonight when the pretty lady comes on screen, but what has that got to do with anything!! Does that mean that every advert should have pretty lady in it because Tony turns his knob up when she's there in the focus group.
I'm an interesting case for advertisers, because I arrived in Australia two years ago with no preconceptions and requiring a lot of products to set up here. And I'll admit to falling for one saturated advert with a pretty lady, but it was hearing that they had the shortest response times in answering the phone, that clinched if for me, and the same pretty lady is getting a bit worn out 2 years on.
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