Crowdsourcing has replaced focus groups, an executive recently declared in a New York Times article titled “Crowdsourcing to Get Ideas, and Perhaps Save Money.” The executive happens to have a vested interest in proclaiming the death of the focus group. His company, UberTesting, offers access to consumers who are willing to be recorded remotely as they try out products and navigate through websites. However, he has a point.
Visually-driven market research of the crowdsourced variety is definitely having its moment. The focus-group model of coaxing a dozen or so strangers into a conference room to critique a product is still a huge business, but more and more brands are looking for market-research solutions that are less costly, more immediate and more authentic. Remotely observing consumers in the actual marketplace surely offers real-world information and nuances that traditional focus groups simply aren’t designed to elicit.