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Mass-Observation, Market Research, and the Birth of the Focus Group, 1937–1997

Writing in 1998, Philip Gould, the Labour Party's chief pollster, observed: "With the exception of 'spin-doctors,' no campaigning phrase has been imbued with a greater air of nonsensical mystique than 'focus groups.' Why focus groups should have gained this elevated position I cannot tell."1 The term originated in U.S. advertising, and American market research agencies have used the practice since at least the mid-1960s, but it was not until the mid-1990s that the term "focus group" first entered wide currency in Britain. It was understood as a form of market research that had filtered into