Well, as I said I am reading Scoring Points, the book written about the Tesco Club Card Success. I wanted to share with you a hilarious focus group test they did as they were learning the ropes. This kind of focus group test is why companies, even successful ones, can make mistakes! Remember, making mistakes is ok if you learn from them. I am sure Tesco learned from this one!
So, basically Tesco wanted to start a club card for students. Makes sense, develop loyal shoppers from an early age, and then ensure you keep them. In order to go after this target market they decided they should do a focus group!! So they invited students, offered them free beer, wine and sandwiches and began the focus group. Like all focus groups, the company representatives sat behind the two way mirrors and watched. And what did they watch???? The students ate the food, guzzled the beer and wine and proceeded to get 'drunk'! And at the end of the session, the students loaded up the left over sandwiches, beer and wine into their pockets and stumbled out. Likely they forgot about the two way mirrors.
I laughed so hard when I read that story!!! For those of you who remember your student days, perhaps you too could see yourself eating the free food and drinking the beer and walking out with the leftovers (of course). Unfortunately they didn't get much useful information from this focus group. The comments given as the students drank more, made less and less sense!! Next time??? Maybe invite the students in for free breakfast and skip the free drink!! Free food, I'm sure, would still be a powerful draw to the students!
This story in the authors words is on page 83 of Scoring Points.
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