Video Clips and Focus Groups
Don’t skip out on measuring the credibility of your witnesses and seeing the power of influence that they have over the decision-makers in your case. And one of the best ways to do that is through witness video clips in a focus group.
In this episode, we discuss the importance and the usability of witness video clips in a focus group. You can better understand how clients are perceived by outsiders. Focus groups can help you identify areas where clients can improve their credibility and provide insights into how they can present themselves better at deposition or trial.
Let’s dive in and learn how the use of witness video clips is an essential component of witness preparation so you can help make your client more effective.
In this episode, you will hear:
- Witness preparation is key.
- The importance of keeping a clear mind.
- Understanding the value and power of witness testimony.
- Why start using video clips in focus groups.
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Supporting Resources:
If you have questions or a particularly challenging client preparation, email Elizabeth directly for assistance: elizabeth@larricklawfirm.com.
Episode Credits:
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Episode Transcript:
Elizabeth Larrick: Hello and welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for joining us this episode.
I want to talk about the importance and the usability of witness clips. And I know I’ve [00:01:00] talked about this before, and I’ve talked about it with witness preparation, doing a clip, creating a clip with zoom of your client, and then playing the clip and then asking questions about credibility words to describe the person and that is super helpful.
I 100 percent think that is super helpful thing for you to do to help prepare your client to see any things that. Focus group members are saying that maybe you don’t see, but what I really want to talk about today was an example for some focus groups that I’ve been running here recently on a particular case.
And what was so dynamic was, we had a setup again, we’re doing a series of focus groups, and that’s because we want to compare the data. We want to make sure we want to tweak things. And so basically set up this 6 hour in person focus group. We had 12 people, 14 people. [00:02:00] 14 people in our focus groups, and we designed the setup to be the same and we did basically opening statements with PowerPoints that included exhibits.
Right? So, a larger, more in depth opening statements and then we played video clips from several of the main PowerPoints. Layers in the cases. Now we did not do experts. Well, I think experts can be helpful. I think most of the time in my experience. It’s the main players that get biggest scrutiny that also way more as far as evidence goes in the minds and how jurors decide things.
But what was impressive was we’ve had to focus group so far, and we’ve run the exact same clips. And we have 1 focus group that felt strongly about a particular client and then switched up and they had the opposite view in our 2nd focus group and [00:03:00] super helpful to know, but we went back and looked at it and I said, you changed your things in the 1st focus group.
Focus group with our video clips. Our theme was much more about personalized, the personal struggle of this person and a lot of their backgrounds is very personalized theme and approach to the opening statement versus when we ran it again, they did not take that personal approach to it. And it really showed that they did not appreciate some of the things that the first focus group said.
One way he was likable He wasn’t so likable, but I think also what really set that home was hearing some of the comments and we had 14 people and they had said, had made many comments about the video and the story. particular style of this person’s testimony. And so I just asked, how many people were swayed by the video?
How many people changed their [00:04:00] minds? And out of 14 people, we had almost about 50%, seven hands went up and said, by the video alone that changed their minds. Right. So just based on 10 minutes of information compared to opening statements and documents that sealed the deal for them and move them to the opposite side.
So, to me, 1, I think we’ve got a couple of good things. Roll around in here and that would be, don’t hesitate to use video clips and focus groups, especially of the main players and do it more than once. Secondly, witness preparation is key because. There was a clear difference in testimony styles, but then they actually hit one of the witnesses for being a little bit coach, but they said, you got to at least set up straight, but I wouldn’t even set up straight to answer questions.
You’re really going to [00:05:00] get so much good detail out of those video clips. And there’s a lot of power in doing that. Clearly, when we look at all the evidence and all the information that was given to these people, the video swayed them the most, right? So they put a whole lot of credibility, a whole lot of weight into that.
So let’s keep that in mind. And then one of the things too, that I think is super helpful, especially in this situation, which was a fact finding that was very complicated and very above. What anyone in the room had ever experienced as a business situation. I think that’s one good conclusion to draw, which is if your case matter and your back pattern is complicated, and it could be all kinds of things, complicate back patterns.
It could be things are long. It could be that it’s drawn out. It could be that it needs several different layers to understand it. It could be highly technical, scientific, medical, lots of things can complicate it. But just [00:06:00] the value and the power of witness testimony, that’s where a lot of people are going to draw a lot.
Their decision making all that to be said, I think overall super successful focus groups that we ran and we’re able to get to some comparison data, but really knowing, oh, my gosh, the weight and the power of the testimony in these particular cases, but also getting this comparison data. between these two focus groups on again, something super simple.
We did not complicate this. We made 10 minute clips of each person. It wasn’t all one side clips, right? It was down the middle, some good, some bad, but definitely flavors to, so the jury or the participants can see all the sides. And the person and then just followed up with really simple questions on a scale of 1 to 10.
How credible is this person? What are 3 words you’d use to describe them? What’s 1 question you want to ask them? And people are very forthcoming [00:07:00] about it. And then in our discussion, this is again, after they have additional information, right? More information came out more videos. They went back and they talked about that without being prompted.
Right? So 1 of the big things we can always draw is what do they talk about? What do they not talk about? Anyhow, my point of this episode today is you’ve got to start doing some of these focus groups where you’re making clips and it may be just clips of your client. It may be clips of key players and put it in front of the focus group, but it is such a valuable focus group.
It’s so easy to do. I do video clips a hundred percent virtually. It’s easy to do. We did our clips today in person. Don’t skip out on that. At least measuring the credibility of your witnesses and just seeing the power of influence that they have over the decision makers in your case. So, I hope that this was helpful.
Super fresh example. Literally today was 1 of our 2nd focus [00:08:00] groups. We’re probably going to run it again. And again, just they’re tweaking their themes. Obviously, that’s what I saw today was a little bit of a tweak in the themes. Anyhow, a huge encouragement to start doing some of these video clips. Make it simple on yourself.
Nearly all of my focus groups that we are doing that are an extended length of time, meaning two hours or even three hours where we’re going really in depth, um, almost requiring that we do some video clip of some witness so that we can give them a real face and a real sound and a real human to look at and listen to when it comes to testimony in the case.
I hope that this was helpful, short, sweet to the point, I hope as well. So if you enjoy the podcast, please like it, follow it on the Apple podcast platform. Apparently, if you go push the plus button on the new application, the new update that really helps other people be able to find the podcast [00:09:00] as well as review.
So I hope that you found this helpful and until next time, thank you.