Divining desire : focus groups and the culture of consultation / Liza Featherstone.

Includes bibliographies and index.

Introduction: Dichter's egg -- The birth of the focus group -- "The snowball interview": the focus group comes to Madison Avenue -- "King Consumer": market research is attacked--and industry responds -- Viper, fool, or expert?: the consumer as a woman -- "We ask them": focus groups in the age of women's liberation -- Entertaining Joe Sixpack -- "Where is the emotion?": the emergence of the focus group in electoral politics -- "God and Coca-Cola": the story of New Coke -- "A faster horse?": the entrepreneur strikes back -- "The decider" -- Bartender in a Lamborghini: the professional respondent -- "Who are these appalling people?" -- Conclusion: Are focus groups dead?

"The focus group, over the course of the last century, became an increasingly vital part of the way companies and politicians sold their products and policies with few areas of life, from salad dressing to health care legislation to our favorite TV shows, left untouched by moderators questioning controlled groups about what they liked and didn't. Divining Desire is the first-ever popular survey of this topic. In a lively, sweeping survey, Liza Featherstone traces the surprising roots of the focus group in early-twentieth century European socialism, its subsequent use by the "Mad Men" of Madison Avenue, and its widespread employment today. She also explores such famous "failures" of the method as the doomed launch of the Ford Edsel, and the even more ill-fated attempt to introduce a new flavor of Coca Cola (which prompted street protests from devotees of the old formula). As elites became increasingly detached from the general public, they relied ever more on focus groups, whether to win votes or to sell products. And, in a society where many feel increasingly powerless, the focus group has at least offered the illusion that ordinary people can be heard and that their opinions count. Yet, the more they are listened to, the less power they have. That paradox is particularly stark today, when everyone can post an opinion on social media --

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