Focus groups seem to bother them especially. I’ve never understood why. A cross section of twelve people studying commercials and print ads can often point out flaws that the consultants miss. This doesn’t mean that you find every comment useful. Some of them can get pretty dumb. But most focus groups produce at least one or two insights that are worth discussing later on. The two thirty-second spots I showed Natalie that morning had been produced, tested, reshot, and then tested again. The first focus group, which leaned toward the moderately conservative, complained that when Susan spoke about helping people, the ads sounded as if she was just another big-spending liberal. In this part of the state conservatives won three out of four elections. We retooled. The new spots showed Susan in a factory, on a farm, in an office building, talking to people with jobs. The word “hardworking” could be heard three times per spot. We needed to make it clear that while Susan was pushing for extended unemployment benefits and help for the needy, she had a great respect for average people still working their asses off five or six days a week.
