Focus Group Insights For Magicians

Focus groups have a bad reputation in entertainment. Movie directors especially love to moan about being forced to compromise their artistic vision to satisfy some focus group. But outside of entertainment, businesses are desperate for data about their customers.

When I worked in advertising, I watched focus groups on topics from a new model of printer to what people think of their phone company versus their cable tv provider. All these companies spent big money to learn about their customers.

But magicians, whatever their artistic vision, had no choice. There was just no focus group research on magic.

That’s not true anymore. Over the past decade or so, Andy (not his real name) who writes thejerx.com, worked with Andrew Costello to run several focus groups on magic.

There are limitations to focus group research, but this is pretty much the only actual scientific data available on the subject. And the results contradict some of magic’s most cherished conventional wisdom.

This is why companies do focus groups: quite often, conventional wisdom is wrong. The phone company I mentioned assumed that people liked their phone company much more than their cable company. The exact opposite was true.

The Limits of Focus Group Results

There are two things you have to remember when looking at any focus group results.

1) People may not behave the same in a focus group as they do in real life.

In a survey, People often respond with what they think the answer should be, rather than what it is. People can also be strongly influenced by other people in the group—google “Asch Conformity Line Experiment” if you doubt this.

In one legendary (in the advertising world) example, a company were testing a new music player. They had samples available for people to try out, in two different colors, yellow and black. Yellow was overwhelmingly preferred.

At the end, the participants were told they could each take one of the devices. Everybody took a black one.

2) The results are specific to the group.

All the results I’ll be reporting on were tested in the United States. They may not apply to people in other places.

So if you want to discount these results and just believe the conventional wisdom, there’s your out. But you will be missing a chance to make your magic better.

Card forces

This study was designed to answer the question: which is the most effective card force? Here are the forces they tested, listed in alphabetical order so as not to give away which did better:

• Classic force

• Crosscut force

• Dribble force

• Riffle force

• Second deal force

• Under-the-spread force

Which of those do you think scored the best? Which was the worst?

More importantly, why do you think that?

Actually, let’s be very clear about what we’re talking about:

• Classic Force: The magician spreads the cards in their hands, the spectator takes one.

• Cross Cut Force: The spectator cuts the deck, and one half is put across the other to mark the cut.

• Dribble Force: The magician dribbles the cards from one hand to the other until the spectator says, “Stop.”

• Riffle Force: The magician holds the deck in a dealing grip and runs their thumb down the corner of the deck until the spectator says, “Stop.”

• Second Deal Force: The cards are dealt on the table until the spectator says "Stop." They can choose that card or keep dealing.

• Under-the-spread Force: The magician spreads the cards in their hands, and the spectator touches one. They can change their mind.

The biggest challenge in any test is to limit the variables. You want the same magician to do all the forces, so any difference in the results is due to the force itself. But what magician is equally good at all these forces? If my Dribble force beats my Riffle force, how do you know it’s not just me?

So here’s what they did: they didn’t force any cards. They had a card selected using the handling of each force, but without any actual force. So for the classic force, they simply spread the deck and let the person pick any card. For the second deal force they dealt fairly until the person said stop. No card was forced.

After each selection, they asked people, “How fair did that seem?” So what they actually tested was which card selection process seemed the fairest to the audience. Essentially, they tested each force at its absolute best.

Magicians usually guess the Classic Force is the best.

Is that what you thought? In fact, it came last.

Dead last.

Here are the results, with scores.

• Cross Cut force - 86

• Second Deal force - 80

• Under the Spread force - 72

• Dribble force - 54

• Riffle force - 51

• Classic force - 45

But I Love My Classic Force

Every magician’s first question is why the classic force scored so low, so let’s start with that. In the testing, they asked a couple of follow-up questions to reveal what people are thinking.

For the classic force, the typical comment was basically, “that’s what magicians do when they want to make you pick the card they want.” 18 out of 20 participants said, in various ways, that when a magician wants to make you pick a card, they spread the cards and push one to you.

Remember, this is when no card was forced. Just spreading for a selection is suspicious to a very large percentage of the audience. It doesn’t matter how good you are.

I have seen several magicians whose act was basically classic forcing the same card over and over again. I have seen it done very well, where it was playful and magical.

But it may have busted that method.

That’s right. Cross Cut Force, bitch!

The second, and much better question, I think, is why was the cross cut force so high? Follow-up questions gave two useful answers.

Many people mentioned the fact that the cards were in their hands. It’s no surprise this made things seem fairer.

A large number of people responded with something along the lines of “It’s just cutting to a card.” This is a hugely underestimated factor in card magic. Cutting the cards, and dealing them (as in the Second Deal force), are the only things on this list that normal people do with playing cards. Nobody ever dribbles the cards, or riffles down the deck, or spreads it from hand to hand for a selection. If non-magicians are playing cards and need to choose a card, they cut to a card.

So the Cross-Cut force reminds people of selecting a random card. And the Classic force reminds people of a magician forcing a card. I’m sorry for the Classic force enthusiasts, but this kind of counter-intuitive result is exactly why focus group testing is so valuable.

Oh, By The Way

You remember when I said they didn’t actually force any cards? That’s not quite right. If you do the handling of the Cross Cut force, it will actually force a card. So doing the Cross-Cut force looks fairer to the audience than spreading the cards for a genuinely free selection.

How to fix card forces

This is pretty simple: don’t do the classic force. Instead, use the cross-cut force.

But that’s not always possible. Drilling down into the results, we see two things we can do to improve any force, including the ones that weren’t tested.

Slow Down

In the forces that scored poorly, the decision is over very fast. And the spectators’ feedback indicated this, with several people mentioning how they felt rushed. The more successful forces are all slower, especially at the moment when the spectator has to make a selection. In the Cross-Cut Force, the spectator can take as long as they want.

Change Your Mind

The biggest single factor that affects the perceived fairness of a force is the spectator’s ability to change their selection before they commit. In the second-deal force, after the spectator says stop, they can keep going if they want. Same with the Under-the-Spread force. With the cross-cut force, after the spectator lifts up half the deck, you can allow them to put it back and cut somewhere else.

How much is that worth? Well, the Classic force and the Under-the-Spread force look exactly the same to the audience; the only difference is that with the UTS, the spectator can change their mind before they commit. How much does that matter? Under-the-Spread force 72, Classic force 45. It really matters.

How to have a card freely selected

This data are important, even if you never force a card. If you want a spectator to have a genuinely free selection of a playing card, do not spread the cards and have one chosen. Even if you’re not forcing a card, it will not seem fair to the audience. At the very least, let them change their mind!

The Peek

The peek is a standard technique in mentalism, with many different handlings. Typically, something is written on a business card, which is then inserted into an envelope, wallet, or stack of cards, or torn to pieces.

There are also a thousand different ways to peek a playing card. They didn’t test any of those, but the findings I’m about to report will guide you in doing a playing card peek more deceptively as well.

The testing method for this one was different. People watched video performances of several peek-based tricks while holding their iPhones, and anytime something seemed suspicious to them, they would swipe on their phone. If you do this for several performances, you can begin to see what actions cause the audience to be suspicious.

And it turns out there is one big one.

The Big Takeaway

In a typical handling, after the spectator writes on the card, you put it into the wallet, envelope, stack of cards, or whatever.

At this point, if you so much as glance in the direction of the wallet, envelope, or stack of cards, people will think you can see what they wrote.

Magicians hate this result. They put a lot of time, effort, and/or money into a prop that you can show on all sides, proving that it’s impossible for you to see what they wrote.

Audiences don’t care. If they write something on a card, and you’re going to magically tell them what they wrote, they are paying close attention to that card. If you glance in the direction of that card, and then later tell them what’s written on it, it is perfectly reasonable for them to assume you could somehow read the card.

The other reason magicians hate this is because it is usually exactly right.

Sadly, this also applies to the center tear. For years, mentalists would tear the card while looking away, stealing the center piece to read it later. But over the past few decades there have been a flurry of center tears designed to get your peek during the tearing.

Focus group testing very clearly shows that this is a bad idea. Sorry to everyone who uses one of these peeks. But they do not seem to be deceptive. If you glance at the paper while tearing it, people will think you are reading what they wrote. They’ll be right.

The most important part of any peek routine is working out a way of getting your peek without the audience ever seeing you look where the card is. And the other side of that, which is to make it very clear that you do not ever look. Otherwise they’ll just think you looked and they missed it.

Keep your Focus

When I worked in television, I never understood the way people disparaged focus group testing. It’s real data from real customers. You don’t have to treat everything they say as gospel. But the things people say about your show mean something.

If you listen, and try to figure out what they’re saying, you can learn something you can use to make your magic better. With these studies, what they are saying is pretty obvious. And it’s pretty easy to try replacing your existing card force with the cross-cut force.

So do your own test. Try one of these changes for a week and see if you don’t see better reactions from your audiences. Ultimately, that’s the group you want to focus on.