← Back03 · Synthetic research
The focus group is dead. SONAR.
Synthetic panels grounded in real markets, including an adversarial Red Panel built to kill the idea. Answers in hours, not weeks.
Why it exists
The old focus group
- Weeks to recruit, schedule and moderate. Six to eight, if the calendar is kind.
- Small n. Eight strangers behind glass, generalized to a whole market.
- Biased by the room. The loudest voice bends the table; the moderator’s framing bends the rest.
SONAR, done honestly
- Training drift. Most AI panels answer from a model’s 2023 memory, not your market today.→ SONAR grounds every persona in live market data (sonar-pro).
- Sycophancy. Models are tuned to agree with the way you framed the question.→ An adversarial Red Panel is instructed to kill the idea, not flatter it.
- No surprise. A flatterer tells you nothing you did not already believe.→ Objections are ranked and quoted verbatim, never smoothed over.
Screen and pre-mortem in hours. Then validate the one decision that matters with real humans.
The case
A live readout: Rookie’s, before a single store opened.
Purchase intent · n = 25
Name test · panel score (0–100)
Price ladder · Van Westendorp (CLP)
The panel · 5 cohorts
Gen-Z · urban
Wants it, but allergic to anything that feels forced for TikTok.
Premium millennial
Buys quality, watches price. Fears paying premium for a donut and a scoop bought separately.
Foodie · early adopter
Tempted and exacting. Afraid it arrives melted, heavy, more mass than filling.
Impulse buyer
If it looks good, fast and within reach, buys without planning it.
The skeptic · Red Panel core
Smells the hype from a distance. A correct donut with correct ice cream at an inflated price.
The Red Panel · built to kill the idea
One objection, said five different ways.
“It reads as made-for-the-photo. I fear an industrial, lukewarm donut with average ice cream at premium-dessert prices.”
Red Panel · skeptic
“It looks great in the photo, then arrives melted and heavy. More show than flavor.”
Red Panel · foodie
“Feels like an invention for the feed, not something good to eat often. And they will charge extra just for being Instagrammable.”
Red Panel · premium millennial
“Probably a correct donut with correct ice cream at a badly inflated price.”
Red Panel · skeptic
Panel ran in Chilean Spanish, grounded in live market pricing. Verbatims translated; the unanimous phrase kept as-is, “más show que sabor”, meaning more show than flavor.
The Red Panel demanded substance. So the brand led with substance.
- Product
- La RookieThe ice-cream-stuffed donut, named and shipped.
- Price
- $3.500CLP. The payable-premium ceiling the panel drew itself.
- Positioning
- Sell real quality, not for the photo. Generous, visible filling. What looks good is a consequence of being good.
How it works
Four steps, hours apart.
- 01
Define the market
Real category, real geography, real price reality. The brief anchors every persona to the market the brand will actually compete in.
- 02
Build the synthetic panel
Cohorts that mirror the real audience: early adopters, premium millennials, impulse buyers, and the ones hardest to please. Grounded in live market data, not a model’s memory.
- 03
Run plus the Red Panel
Every persona answers on desire, intent, naming and price. Then the adversarial Red Panel is told to break the idea. This is the antidote to a model that just agrees with you.
- 04
Synthesize
Scores, splits and verbatims collapse into one readout and one decision: ship, pivot, or kill. In hours, not weeks.
Stop guessing. Be remembered.
The room is dead. The glass is dead. What survives is the idea that already answered its harshest critic.
SONAR has also read: greeting-card concepts, wine positioning, and talent screening.