Focus Groups
Groups that tell you what people really think
Focus groups in China need more than a room and a recruit list. Face, hierarchy and group harmony make respondents polite and agreeable, so the format, the recruit and the moderator all matter. We handle all three.
Most groups today run online, by video, with respondents joining from home or work and your team watching live from anywhere. We still run face-to-face groups when people need to see, handle or taste a product, or when the audience and the topic call for a room.
Formats
- Online group: 4 to 6 respondents by video on familiar platforms, about 1 to 1.5 hours; now the usual format. See online research
- Face-to-face group: 6 to 8 respondents, about 2 hours, for product handling, tasting or when a room matters
- Mini group: 3 to 4 respondents, 1.5 to 2 hours, online or face to face, for specialists or detailed topics
We over-recruit two per group so no-shows never cost you a session.
Who moderates
Most of our groups are moderated by Sophia Xu, who founded UniqueView in 2011 after years with local and international research agencies. She has more than 20 years in market research and moderates in Mandarin, reading what lies behind polite answers. Because she also shapes the approach and oversees recruitment, the person who plans your groups is the person in the room, and she debriefs your team in English afterwards. On the occasional project with more groups than one person can run, or an audience better matched to someone else, our other senior moderators take some of the sessions, briefed by Sophia. Meet Sophia
Who we recruit for groups
Consumers in every tier of city, plus specialist groups such as healthcare professionals, IT managers and procurement teams. See hard-to-reach recruitment.
How we keep groups honest
- Separate groups by age and seniority, so juniors don’t simply follow seniors.
- Individual tasks before discussion, so first reactions are captured before the group settles on a view.
- Projective techniques (“what would a friend say?”) to bring out criticism people won’t voice directly.
- Moderators who read the room, and debrief you on what was meant as well as what was said.
Checked respondents
Every respondent’s ID and proof documents are checked at recruitment and again on arrival, with key screener questions repeated before they go in. See qualitative quality control.
Watching from abroad
Online groups stream straight to your team, with live interpretation.
For face-to-face groups, our 360° camera sits at the centre of the table. Your team sees the whole table at once and, below it, a close-up of whoever is speaking, as the camera turns to each person in turn. Expressions and reactions come through as clearly as the words, which is what a fixed corner camera misses. An interpreter translates simultaneously, so you hear the discussion live in English, and you can send questions to the moderator during the group.
A face-to-face group through our 360° camera: the whole table above, whoever is speaking below.
In Shanghai you can also watch through the one-way mirror, and we arrange high-quality facilities in other cities through our partner network. More on how we stream fieldwork: video streaming.