Editor's Note: Leslie M. Harris is founder of the Boston-based International Network of Focus Group Research Centers.

This article is a compilation of research-related trends in the U.S. and Canada gleaned from interviews with representatives of companies in the newly established International Network of Focus Group Research Centers.

To begin with, let's look at some trends in Canada, as reported by Steve Hamilton-Clark, account director, Elliott Research, Toronto. He identified these trends in group characteristics:

  • Group size is now typically 5 to 6 respondents, rather than the traditional 8 to 10.
  • There is less demand for regional representation - groups are now usually conducted in Toronto and Montreal or in just one center (e.g., Vancouver or Halifax). It is rare to conduct groups across Canada. With less regional representation, fewer groups are being conducted. The typical qualitative project consists of four to six groups rather than eight to 10.
  • There is also a broader representation of clients in the back room - it's not just the marketing and ad agency types attending.
  • There is increased use of qualitative/quantitative studies (i.e., giving respondents questionnaires during the focus group).

In general, Hamilton-Clark says, there is no longer a big demand/need for truly exploratory research. Clients can't afford to spend money on research that might prove to be a wild goose chase. As a result, discussion guides have become much more focused.

Consumers are becoming increasingly sophisticated, exhibiting a strong knowledge of marketing issues and using marketing terms/theory in their responses.

Respondent recruitment specifications have become increasingly specific in response to defined/niche target marketing practices. In addition, it's harder to recruit respondents in big urban centers, due in large part to the proliferation of the caller ID feature on telephones. Respondents are less apt to answer the phone if they do not recognize the telephone number, which has led to increased recruiting costs and respondent incentives.

Hamilton-Clark says that clients are demanding quicker turnaround on reports on the groups, in the form of day-after verbal debriefs and written reports delivered three or four days after the last group. Reports are more succinct (written in an executive summary approach) and there is considerably less demand for supporting quotes in the report.

U.S. research firms have also noted reduction in the number of respondents attending focus groups. Groups now range in size from six to eight respondents versus the traditional groups of 10 to 12, according to Patty Fogerty of the Fogerty Group in San Diego and Renie Vitellaro of Chicago's O'Hare in Focus. They've both seen an increase in the popularity of mini- groups.

Ryan Reasor of The Question Shop in Orange County, Calif., notes the increase in the number of one-on-one interviews. The quotas for this type of research range from 10 to as many as 30, with each interview lasting 30 minutes to two hours.

As in Canada, the number of clients attending focus groups is also up. These days, there can be as many as 15 client representatives watching from the back rooms.

Terri-Lyn Hawley of Focus on Boston reports an increase in the number of early morning and mid-day groups. She says that Friday evening and Saturday morning groups are becoming more common.

Other general findings on the changing nature of group research:

  • Moderators are demanding tighter quotas. A shorter time is allowed in recruiting each group.
  • Inarticulate respondents are being eliminated from projects.
  • Screening questions are becoming more specific as companies seek to recruit only respondents who can really contribute to the group discussion.
  • Business-to-business marketers appear to be fuming more frequently to one-on-one research, to the exclusion of focus groups.

Tony Blass of Field Dynamics in Encino, Calif., cites the growth in Asian focus groups. During the past year he has recruited more than a dozen groups in Chinese (both Mandarin and Cantonese) as well as in Korean, Vietnamese and Japanese. His company now employs more bilingual recruiters and interviewers.

New techniques and new technologies

Allan Benedict, executive vice president of Nordhaus Research, Southfield, Mich., says videoconferencing is being used as a way to reduce qualitative project costs by eliminating the travel expenditures of client observers. Videoconferenced groups allow clients in different locations to observe a session on video monitors.

A new application in videoconferencing is the use of multi-point bridging to connect several sites to a central observation point (or even multiple viewing rooms). Nordhaus recently completed a project among automotive dealership representatives across the country, all participating in the same session. All of the advantages of having face-to-face contact remained, without the cost of flying all respondents to the same facility or conducting small group interviews in each city.

Kelly Ireland of the Nor-Tex Group in Dallas says use of telephone focus groups is on the rise. Nor-Tex has also been presetting appointments for telephone one-on-ones across the nation, an approach that appears to work very well for low incidence, hard to reach professionals, Ireland says.

Paul Bolden of Focus on Boston believes the increasing use of the new technologies is a good development if it aids the moderator and increases the versatility of the group technique. On the flip side, technology can create service problems. Whatever a facility offers, Bolden says, high-tech features should be considered secondary to the overall quality of the facility's basic operation.

Some facilities are offering moderators an edited tape to support their written reports. They are also providing transcripts of the groups - through traditional note takers, transcriptions made from the tape, or by entering the data into a computer loaded with specialized software that produces a disk for the moderator immediately after the group has ended.

To summarize, consumer-oriented use of focus groups has continued to grow. However, the emerging use of focus groups by business-to-business marketers is perhaps the most important trend among the users of group research. The range of new techniques and technologies has continued to create interest among the companies and moderators who use focus groups, and the ability to utilize these technologies is becoming increasingly important.