Confessions of a Focus Group Whore

The market research groups call me monthly to see if anyone in my household qualifies for a focus group. We're in a desirable demographic apparently, age, education, income wise. I have an opinion about most everything, I end up going to a few each year.

I was paid $60 (usually it's $75) Monday night at a focus group for mothers of preschool aged children. I'm usually a contrarian pain in the ass, so I don't feel too bad about participating in these focus groups. This group consisted of 6 moms, most had two kids under the age of 5. All of the kids were in preschool. The leader asked us about our communication with the teachers. What we thought of the teachers. What we thought of the school. What sort of material we received from the school on a regular basis.

They asked our opinion about the partnership of Scholastic and Chlorox to market products to kids and parents. They handed out a heavy card stock, glossy insert full of bulleted tips for keeping kids healthy (cough into elbow, sing happy birthday twice while washing hands) during flu season. They wanted to know if we found it distasteful, would we think the teachers were sponsoring/advocating the product. Was it more of a magazine or an advertisement?

I said it was confusing and the partnership didn't make sense. Everyone else said without scholastic they would ignore it or think it was an advertisement. Scholastic gave it instant credibility and trust. I said, what about using a health related sponsor or parenting magazine instead?

Most women thought by having the booklets at school and tucked into the child's backpack at the end of the day, meant the school approved of the product. They also had no problem with sending promotional items home with their child.

The school would read a germ busting book and provide germ busting games (mazes, coloring books, awards) published by Scholastic (tie in). I said the materials seemed cheesy. Maybe they would be used once and I doubt it would make an impression on kids.

I also ojbected to materials going home in the backpack. I would also strongly object to any food product or toy products going home. They would be marketing directly to my kid.

The group weighed in on other ways to market this bleach product. The moms said they regularly visit product site video games (I hate those with a passion!!) Related article here.

The end result was that I was the only person in a group of 6 who said why bother with scholastic. It's advertising, give us a product sample, give us a few tips, but the scholastic tie in is worthless. I'm pretty sure what they're really doing is finding ways to market directly to kids and make them life long brand loyal suckers.