Strengths and Weaknesses of Any Two Research Methods

From an advertising perspective, examine the role interviews and focus groups have in research in particular their strengths and limitations?

Within advertising, research is used to ‘help advertisers understand consumers and assess the effectiveness of advertising messages directed to them’ (O’Barr 2007). As such, advertising research has to be consumer orientated, allowing consumers to address their views and opinions on a certain brand or product. Interviews and focus groups are consumer orientated as they generate different opinions on a particular subject, giving a critical overview of an advertisement. An interview ‘is an in-depth understanding of a topic that the research informant is able to speak about’ (Belk 2013). On the other hand, a focus group is when a selection of people are interviewed by a moderator to gain ideas and opinions about a particular subject (Dayman and Holloway 2011). However, while focus groups and interviews produce similar data, which of these are more effective in advertising research. Despite both focus groups and interviews being qualitative data, they have different uses and have different roles in conducting advertising research. In his book, How Advertising Works: the Role of Research Jones states ‘focus groups are the predominant method of qualitative research for advertising’ (1998: 131). Similarly, Young quoted by McDermott (2013) states ‘the traditional focus group continues to be an area of focus in our qualitative research efforts,’ indicating focus groups play an important role in advertising research. One of the reasons focus groups are useful in advertising research is that they can be used at different stages of the campaign process as shown in Mass Communication Research Methods ‘a very early stage for exploratory purposes’ (Hansen, Cottle, Negrine, Newbold 1998:260) or they can be used later to evaluate