Yahoo! is the latest big-name company to join the ranks of marketers who think the traditional focus group has had its day. The Internet firm's CMO, Cammie Dunaway, says she wants to trash the old
two-way mirror observational format in favor of "immersion groups" of four or five people with whom product developers talk informally face to face without a moderator. Yahoo! isn't the only one to
bash focus groups, as other marketers turn to new technology and the Internet to find out what consumers want. "There's peer pressure in focus groups that gets in the way of finding the truth about
real behavior and intentions," says John B. Osborne, CEO of BBDO, New York, AOL's ad agency.
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