I recently came across an astonishing figure: Of the 14,298 food products introduced into supermarkets in 1995, a mere 12 percent were successful. This is where focus groups can help, and they’re now a standard consumer research tool informing everything from political campaigns to corn flakes. Museums benefit from focus groups, too, as they’re an opportunity to present ideas, language, promotional materials—anything, really—to the public and get some early reactions. It’s like a movie’s sneak preview or a play’s public reading.
I’ve been sitting in on the focus groups that the MIA is currently doing for an upcoming exhibition on the arts of Islamic Africa. An outside agency assembles the participants, leads the conversations, then summarizes and analyzes them for us in a final report. MIA staff watch the focus groups on closed circuit TV, eat snacks, and take notes. While the snacks are certainly tasty, the feedback we receive is the real pay-off.
So what have we learned for the upcoming exhibition? We’ve heard we need to rethink some of the language we use to present religious ideas, and that a media installation we’re planning has a long way to go. It’s great input, and lets us make course corrections now that will lead to a better exhibition that’s meaningful to more people. There’s a lesson there: listen to your audience, or risk being the museum equivalent of Crystal Pepsi.