They conducted focus groups and one-on-one interviews with at least 40 Transocean workers.
It has conducted focus groups in which members of the public were shown clips of Mr Miliband on television.
Follett, for example, has conducted focus groups to test students' reactions to online or CD versions of textbooks.
But when his company conducted focus groups, he said, "what they said they really wanted they wouldn't pay for".
"Voters find Kerry aloof and distant," said Frank Luntz, a pollster who has conducted focus groups for MSNBC among primary voters in a half-dozen states.
Researchers for the Growth & Opportunity Project contacted more than twenty-six hundred people — voters, officeholders, Party operatives — conducted focus groups, and took polls around the country.
Laura Sanford, president of the AT&T Foundation, said the company had conducted focus groups last fall with investors to determine how they felt about spending on charity.
"Democrats tend to tire faster of people than Republicans do," said Frank Luntz, a Republican communications consultant who has conducted focus groups on presidential candidates of both parties.
ABC, a unit of the Walt Disney Company, conducted focus groups with consumers last summer to gauge potential changes to the advertising load on its video Web site.
Most damningly, the official said, "AT&T conducted focus group studies in 2009 and 2010 that demonstrated that customers had a negative reaction to the policy".
We conducted focus group sessions with 41 minority adolescents to assess their perceptions about HIV testing.
