The first focus groups were created in WWII. They were designed to test the effectiveness of allied propaganda. To determine which posters got people pumped up to go stick it to Hitler, conserve gas, and turn in their scrap metal versus which ones left patriotic spirits unstirred and war bonds unsold.

Since then they've become an enshrined part of North American marketing wisdom. From General Electric to the defunct Video rental shop that finally closed down two years ago, every business for the past 70 years has lived in a haze of focus group madness. Want to know which cartoon mascot people will trust to sling hamburgers to their kids more? Run a focus group. Which sneakers seem "more athletic?” Run a focus group. Want to know how big of a spoiler is too big to attach to the back of your car? Forget the eggheads in the wind tunnel, run a focus group instead.

Focus groups are responsible for more failed businesses and pointless ventures than ponzi schemes, inside trading, and typhoons combined. 

Don't believe me? Ask the focus groups that almost killed the Reebok pump (which included a group of sneering teenaged basketball players, the same demographic who would trip over each other to buy a pair a year later). Or the great minds that told Pepsi that America would love the Pepsi Edge (introduced in 2004, retired in 2005). These companies would have had as much luck predicting success or failure if they had consulted a house cat instead (at least then they could have batted some yarn around or something). 

Steve Jobs knew the score. He distrusted focus groups on an instinctual level. His reasoning was simple - "It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”

I'd go a step further. I'd say that focus groups are useless at best, creativity killers and saboteurs at the worst. They're the numbskull up in the crow's nest that tells the Captain "yup, looks good!” while steering the ship into the rocks. They kick back disinformation businesses base multimillion dollar campaigns on. 

Focus groups are terrible, and it's not a problem you can correct for. There is no way to make a focus group more organic, or accurate. The flaw goes bone deep and the patient is terminal.

Focus groups fail because nobody, anywhere, actually acts like a focus group does. Focus groups are a totally artificial construct. A bizarre quasi-mystical meeting of a group of total strangers gathered around to discuss the merits, or lack thereof, of a product or service they may know nothing about. They might as well all have fingers on a Ouija board. 

The group dynamic poisons everything. Most of us have an inborn desire to be liked by others, to impress others. Some of us like to be contrarian, to play the devil's advocate even when it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Get a mix of these people in a group, and you won't get an accurate assessment of a product, you'll get a stew of psychological misplays. A group of people desperate to be "right” about what they're talking about, to have the correct opinion and fall in with some seems to be the prevailing wisdom of the table. Or, obstinate negativity manufactured for no other reason than seeming like the most interesting person in a group of strangers. 

It's no wonder this environment kills great ideas and props up terrible ones. Completely useless as far as market research goes. What you want is something that will tell you how customers actually think. What truly motivates their purchasing decisions, the things that catch their attention and the things that bounce right off them.

This is why having a website with good analytical tools is so useful. Instead of herding a bunch of people into a sterile room under entirely artificial conditions, a website lets you observe the customer in their natural habitat. Like a National Geographic photographer crouched in the tall grass, gazing through a telephoto lens, proper web marketing allows you to view the majestic customer in its natural state (hunched over a laptop with two-day old weekend stubble and wearing track pants with a hole in them).

Detailed telemetry can tell you more about how your customers view your product than a focus group ever would. Heat maps, split-tests, data aggregation, these will all paint a picture of what people come to your site for, what they focus on, and what makes them run the other way screaming. 

"But how does this help me see if there is a demand for a new product I'm thinking of?” you ask? Well, you can always ask. Having a well maintained website, especially with a social media presence provides you with a direct line to your customers. You can get in touch directly, conduct one-on-one interviews, send out surveys, or just float ideas on social media and see what generates interest and what doesn't.

Focus groups have always been junk. I suspect most marketing firms that have spent decades employing them knew that on some level. But, for a long time, they were one of the only tools we had so people made the best with what they had.

Those days are over. Kill your focus groups and bury them deep. Deep enough that they'll never rise to murder another great idea or steer a company to disaster again.