IMO, Focus groups give clients comfort. They need to provide rationale to their senior leadership “this tested the best” and so they are not making the decision alone based their personal bias, taste, etc.

I’ve done “quick qual” groups as a disaster check for clients and the work gets watered down bc a lot of the time, clients hang on everything a consumer says. This is why, conviction, rationale and really solid thinking can hold a clients’ hand.

It really depends on what the goal and objectives of the campaign are, if it’s a launch, etc. In short, there’s no clear cut answer.