Have you ever wondered about asking consumers about their feelings...

while they are sitting in a boardroom that reminds them of their employer's meeting rooms, with a microphone dangling in front of them and a camera facing them - and an obvious one-way mirror - making them feel like specimens in a bizarre lab where their every movement and utterance is being examined by some faceless people and recorded for later dissection?

Doesn't sound terribly healthy, does it?

Yet that is the focus group business in virtually every North American focus group facility today.

Let's talk to some of our customers about how they feel.... um, right. We'll just stick 'em in one of those rooms around a big table. Put a camera in front of them and get them to sign a release for the video rights. Sure is a great way to encourage some natural responses and some creative thinking, isn't it?

So why do these companies continue to do it?

First - because they don't know any better. It's the way it's always been done. The competitors do it. The rooms are more flexible that way.

Second - the clients like it. They want to be behind that mirror. They feel more comfortable in rooms that remind them of their environments - never thinking whether that's the environment that the users of their products would relate to best. They feel powerful, looking at their customers in a detached way which makes them feel safe.

Third - nobody ever really stopped to question it.

So I'm asking - whatever happened to getting a bunch of people together in someone's basement one night to talk about what they think of laundry detergent? That's what qualitative research started out as. It's how it's still done in European facilities, and in other parts of the world.

Isn't that what ethnography is, at it's core? It's nothing new, just a great sounding word that some people use impressively in proposals - and get paid more because it sounds terribly scientific. But it's nothing more than - going to people where they interact with the brand, in their own environment, in a natural setting, and getting impressions...feelings...insights...the real stuff. And don't forget - while it's easier for recruiters and respondents to schedule groups after working hours, it really makes little sense to ask people to discuss breakfast cereals at 7 pm. The when matters almost as much as the environment.

In the UK some years ago I noticed that they were holding focus groups in converted houses, with kitchens, living rooms, and other home type appointments. Sure, they had mirrors. But overall - they were natural. Instead of boardroom tables they had casual seating arranged in a semi circle, with a chair for the moderator in the middle. There was a mic but no camera. Why don't we do that here?

Another possible reason we don't do that here - the moderators.

It seems to me that North American moderators fall broadly into two camps - the 'happy, bouncy, upbeat' type who make respondents feel good and are animated, engaging, positive - even if they never really get anything terribly deep out of the group, and the 'I'm in charge, in control, and like to hear myself talk' type who impress clients with their control of the group and ability to keep the discussion focused on, and moving efficiently through the study guide. In between are a very few truly good ones who know that people rarely even understand their own feelings on bands and products, because they aren't generally in the rational realm, and can even more rarely articulate thm. So they use exploratory techniques, rojective techniques, associative techniques - not the " tell me if you would describe the product as a tiger or a lamb" type of question, but using photo collages, imagery, other types of left-brain explorations to really get to the connections between people and the brand. They get people's emotional side engaged, they get people out of their comfort zone in a non-threatening way so they can have real conversations with people that get to what their real drivers are.

Those latter types need new and different types of focus group facilities (like ad agencies have been building) and the first two types are what keeps the traditional facilities in business. But they are dinosaurs, and headed for extinction.

Not to make an unpleasant association, but let's think about common police interrogation techniques. Well, interrogation has come along way. Today, cops use techniques to build trust, to connect emotionally with the suspect, to move beyond the prepared and rational responses to the emotional core - which is where they will develop the associations that bind the suspect to the crime.

They don't ask the obvious because they will get the expected rational answer. So why do so many moderators still do the obvious?

If you want to get at how consumers feel, don't ask them under a mcroscope in a lab. Don't herd them into labs or rooms and stick a camera in their faces. Either go out to where they interact with the brand - and at the times they interact with the brand - or do it in an environment that at least attempts to approximate one that is natural and will encourage the expression of left-brain insights - which are, after all, the ones that give marketers what they really need to bind consumers to their brands.