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ADVENTURES IN MARKETING
by Jim O'Loughlin


So, this was the deal. I'd get a telephone call from Karen. She'd have a harried and desperate tone in her voice, and I could always hear a twinge of guilt when she'd say something like, "There's a focus group tomorrow. I really need college juniors or seniors majoring in math or engineering. Can you do that?"

Karen's job was to find subjects for marketing focus groups. She'd cold call people, looking, for example, for men 18-35 who shaved with a Gillette razor. If you fit the profile, she'd invite you to a focus group. For a couple hours of your time, you'd get an envelope with thirty bucks, a ham and cheese sandwich, and participate in a discussion over the latest Norelco marketing campaign to steal away Gillette users.

Karen was the friend of a friend of a friend, and, though we never met, I somehow wound up taking on a special job on her behalf, as what could be called a "profile filler." Karen only called me when she was having trouble meeting her quota, usually the day before a focus group was scheduled. At the time, I was a graduate student taking out loans to cover tuition, so who was I to turn down thirty bucks and a sandwich? "Sure, Karen," I'd say, "Put me down as a senior math major. Call me… Brian Taylor, would that work?" The next day, I'd show up as Brian Taylor and be part of a focus group designed to help aerospace companies figure out how to better recruit new workers.

Here's what would happen during one of these sessions. I'd show up at this warehouse that had been converted into office space along with fifty people who really did fit the profile. We'd all wolf down sandwiches and grab sodas before being put into groups of a dozen and led into one of four identical conference rooms with a big oval table and one mirrored wall. Then a perpetually upbeat group facilitator would introduce himself or herself and explain why we were there. We were told that there might be people behind the mirrored wall observing us, and occasionally we'd hear a cough from behind the glass. We'd all nervously chuckle about that.

I always started off trying to do as little as possible. I didn't want to be memorable, and besides, sometimes I knew almost nothing about what we were discussing. But somehow, in the course of a session, I couldn't help talking. So, you can thank me, Jeffrey Smyth, drinker of between six and twelve Coors Lights a week, for the fact that we now have "Miller Genuine Draft Light" instead of "Miller Lite, Genuine Draft." Despite my vow to keep quiet I had said, "You can lighten something strong, but if you start with something light, how much better can it ever become?" Our group facilitator really liked that one and scribbled down a note on a notepad. About a year later, I saw the beer on the shelves.

Now, maybe you think I should regret contributing misleading information into America's marketing databank, but I thought of myself at the time as a foot soldier in a guerilla war against corporate manipulation. In fact, there was only one moment when I felt bad about what I was doing. I was Sam Martin and I helped to rate my favorite and least favorite local TV news anchors. We'd see a brief clip of talking heads reading the news, and then be asked if we "liked" each person or not. I knew what was going on. Years of journalism school would come down to a question of grooming. Bad hair, particularly if you were a woman, and your career would come to a halt.

My most memorable moment was when I was Frank Griffith, regular viewer of "Chronicle," the Boston-area television newsmagazine. We were discussing a segment of the show called "The Byways and Backroads of New England." At the end of every episode, they'd take a camera crew out to interview some guy who still hammered horse shoes or the owners of a country inn with a functioning mill wheel. People loved this one. "It's my favorite part of the show," a large man with a Red Sox cap had said. "You find out so much about Boston." One woman from the suburbs added, "You know, we're all busy, so it's great to have the show find all these out-of-the-way places you can visit." Our group facilitator that session, a neatly dressed woman with meticulous curly hair, thought that was great. "That's really interesting," she said, underlining something she had written on her notepad. "Let me ask a question. How many of you have ever visited a place that has been featured on 'The Byways and Backroads of New England'?" Dead silence, and a couple embarrassed looks down at the floor. Our group facilitator, in the only dent I ever saw in the armor of perkiness, crossed out her note in disgust. You could see her thinking, "the only thing these people do is drive back and forth to the mall."

Hey, it was an easy thirty bucks. Except for one night. I was Chris O'Malley, and I was a faithful listener of "HIT98, the station you can play at work," though the first time I listened to the station was while driving to the focus group. This time, instead of being put in a conference room, we were herded into a larger room with desks and handed a page of those bubble answer sheets. It felt just like taking an exam. We were told that we would hear six second excerpts of songs. We were to rate each song on a scale of one to seven, depending not on whether we liked the tune, but on how well we recognized it. So a one would be "do not recognize this as music made by humans" and a seven was "I will walk around humming this song until I die."

Well, I went in with an agenda. I'd do my best to make HIT98 play music I wanted to hear. Seven for the occasional Clash song that slipped through. One for anything by Phil Collins. But after a while my persistence was worn down. Song after song after song. Is a mediocre Eric Clapton tune with a good guitar solo a five or a six? Should all Genesis songs also be ones even if Peter Gabriel did the vocals? And what about that catchy Flock of Seagulls tune I was embarrassed to like? Song after song after song. Dozens, hundreds, one hour, two hours. Finally I broke down and just started filling in patterns on the bubble sheet. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7, 6-5-4-3-2-1.

By the end, my wrist was sore. I mumbled thanks for the thirty dollars and left in a daze. I drove home in silence, six-second snatches of song circulating through my brain. Su-Su-Sussudio.