And we thought our questions were vague?

After a morning of market research in class I went home to look at the some YouTube videos of focus groups and true to Elaine’s word they did look fun. Two in particular, the DEVO Color Tests, were absolutely hilarious.

The study was conducted, “For the purpose of leveraging aspects of civilization that appeal to the greater majority (everybody).”

In reality, it was used to determine which color the iconic Devo hats and overall brand image should take on. Typical questions include, “What happens when you touch the color yellow?” or “What words come to mind when you think of the color blue?” or even more surprisingly “If red were a sound would it be high pitched or low pitched?” While these questions are all related to people’s interpretation of different colors, they illicit such varying responses that it seams nearly impossible to link the questions together and say…oh they point to the color green!

So while the Devo test provides some fun entertainment and certainly a good advertising scheme (hey, it got me interested), does it really represent a guided conversation typical of a focus group? My opinion is that the videos and online tests are more of a very clever way to get consumers interacting with the group than actually gaining any insight, but find out for yourself and take the Devo Color test:

http://colorstudy.clubdevo.com/