How to analyze a focus group:
from the recording to a quote that holds up.

Before the first video, write down what you are looking for

Start with the questions the client needs answered, one per line. They are not a summary of the brief: they are the decisions somebody is going to make with your work.

That list is your first codebook. It will grow with what comes up in the sessions, but without it every session gets read with a different question in mind, and the sessions stop being comparable.

Transcribe with the voices apart, above all the one asking

A transcript without separated voices is good for searching a word and little else. You need to know who said what, and in particular to tell the moderator apart from the participants.

The moderator is the one who introduces the topics. If her question is mixed in with the answers, you will count as a participant's opinion the very word she put on the table. It is the most common mistake when counting mentions.

The same goes for stimuli. If a commercial was played in the session, its audio is nobody's opinion: mark it apart before you analyze the reactions, or the advertisement will speak for the participants.

Do a first pass without coding

Go through each session once, start to finish, without labelling anything. Note only what surprises you and what repeats.

This pass exists so that the codebook also comes from the sessions and not only from your head. What the client did not ask and the participants said three times is often the finding that weighs most in the end.

Code with categories you can defend

Bring together the codes that come from your questions and the ones that appeared in the first pass. Every code needs a one-line definition and a real example taken from the sessions.

The definition is what makes two people code the same way. If you cannot write it in one line, the code is still a hunch and not yet a category.

Compare across sessions, not within one

A topic that comes up strongly in one session may be the effect of a single vocal participant. A topic that comes up in nearly every session is a pattern.

That is why it matters to record where a topic did not appear. It is data and not a gap: if only the groups from one segment mention it, that already says something about the segment.

Quote with the exact minute

Every claim in your conclusions should be traceable to a moment in a session. Write down the verbatim sentence and the minute it was said.

That changes the conversation with the client. A sentence that can be checked in the video weighs differently from a summary, and it covers you when somebody asks where a finding comes from.

The interpretation is still yours. Searching and quoting is mechanical work; deciding what it means for the brand is the work you were hired to do.