Publisher's Synopsis
I had already been in the dark room for three and a half hours, and I had a bowl of M&M's in front of me. I would watch groups of women through a double-sided mirror explain their drinking habits; Which appeared as part of the series S.I. Observing focus groups was a common practice for brand managers at Coca-Cola; We have always strived to understand our customers better, so that we can find a way to communicate with them. Our main goal was to give people - like the women in this room - an incentive to choose our brand over the hundreds of others available to them.
I found myself wondering how unproductive what I was doing each day-trying to cater to a picky consumer base with an innovative new message or seductive product development-was. Do consumers really "care" for these brands? Looking round this observation room, I saw six or seven fellows in various stages of engrossment; Among others, the assistant brand manager was taking so many notes that would finally sum up to upper management our findings, the advertising firm representative was trying to extract something clever from a consumer's comment, and the marketing research manager was making sure the supervisor covered everything. on our checklist. Everyone was listening, waiting and watching anything we could use to develop a marketing campaign for next year.
