Friendship Groups - and why they can be great

We've recently been reminded again just how brilliant friendship groups can be while working with a drinks brand. How better to explore drinking behaviour and reactions to positionings for a drink than a 'Pub Tank'? Talking to people in the company of those whom they normally drink with. It sets the research in the social setting and thus has the potential to make it much richer. It's the same reason we love to use 'Kitchen Tanks' when we're talking to groups of mums.

A friendship groups gives you a ready-made group dynamic. They're ready to perform having already formed, stormed and normed over the years of their friendship.

Friendship groups can also be self moderating. People are far less prone to grandstanding or claiming they're cleverer, more sophisticated, more caring or less lazy than they really are. This is simply because their friends won't let them get away with it. This is great because this gives a glimpse into the social environment in which people make decisions. Outside of research their choices are scrutinized by the mates who’re scrutinising their choices in the group.

Of course, the great skill with friendship groups is taking that brilliant natural social energy and ever so gently guiding it to the research objectives of the project without puncturing it.