On Ethnography as Strategic Consumer Research

Using ethnography in strategic consumer research by Elliot and Jankel-Elliott (see below) is cohesive introduction to ethnographic methods. The researchers are on the same line with Arnould and Price emphasizing the strategic opportunities of marketing-oriented ethnography.  To avoid recap what has been discussed in earlier reaction papers of market-oriented ethnography, I will just discuss main points of the process of building the interpretation and finally strategic possibilities.

Tools for Interpretation building

A typology of levels of involvement in observation identifies four modes: the complete participant, the participant-as-observer, the observer-as-participant and the complete observer. Between these modes, ideal approach is seen as attempts to minimize the effect of the researcher on the researched and maximize the depth of information that is obtained. So in this ideal, how does interpretation fit in?

Elliott and Jankel-Elliott define interpretation as multiphase process which is driven by data and refined by cross-behavior resonances and disjuntures that point to the sociocultural basis of structured patterns of action. In this process, the disjuncture is seen as a starting point for building overall analysis and coding them from the comparison of the two data sources (observation and interviews) is the key.

For example, interviews always include overgeneralizations and absolutes of informant’s life (always, everyone …) which can be coded from the textual reports. These similar passages can be further analyzed in multiple data sample and finally to behavioral data.  The question is, why these absolutes and generalizations are important to informants in oppose to areas where they are absent. For example, the ideal of ‘Always’ is a strong force guiding both future and present expectations as well as action.

Glosses are another source of possible discjuntures, and coding them is seen to be useful in guiding the researcher to account for discrepancy between how people interpret their own behavior and the one observed by researcher. Glosses can be coded according to informants’ explicit claims and/or to claims that are easily recognized by researcher. In determining why the gloss occurs, the data may provide other behaviors that express similar cultural meanings and values.  Also, claims of commonality and idiosyncrasy are juicy.

Some codes apply to only one behavior; others may mark similarity across behaviors. Tropes are meaningful symbolic links between various behaviors or verbal statements. Why is something unique and special to informants? What is the cultural meaning? As ethnography goes beyond cataloging emic (the informants’ understanding) repetitive themes, the method demands its diverse data to provide the empirical grounding for etic representation (the researchers’ understanding) that accounts for the cultural significance of disjunctures between informants’ understanding and their behaviors.

Managerial Implications

Trough coding and troping interpretation builds to an understanding that encompasses both divergent and convergent elements in a multilayered representation of market behavior. A richly textured interpretation, ‘thick’ description has its implications on strategic marketing which the researchers have classified to four types of managerial goals.

Firstly, through market-oriented ethnography marketer may accomplish thorough understanding of the unarticulated layers of consumer meaning embedded in behavioral constellations. This is especially important when the consumption field is managed through taken-for-granted sociocultural understandings. Sociocultural layers of meaning are difficult to articulate but nonetheless something to which consumers act on.

Secondly, market-oriented ethnography may help in assessing gaps in a specific product/service in delivering resonant meanings across behaviors. By coding and troping, marketer may indentify links to additional layers of meanings and foster product uses that resonate with the existing meanings or other products within the constellation. Thus, needs for modification and re-positioning the product/service may also be identified. Unlike brand- or product-focused market research that develops contrasts with substitutes; market-oriented ethnography turns to complementary products in the constellation.

Presenting and describing example cases of the layers of meaning that organize behavioral constellation is the third managerial implication of market-oriented ethnography. Instead of verbal reports, thick transcription which uses multiple representations is called for to build up the exemplar vivid and concrete. Videos, customer storied and such can effectively capture the meaning and better address on managerial level.

Finally, fourth managerial goal that market-oriented ethnography addresses is the understanding the market over time. On-going ethnography may is a generative source and the ethnographer can predict likely responses with little or no data collection. In its extreme, thick inscription privileges the experiences of the researcher who becomes full insider in the consumption use context. The privilege of experience is not exclusive, though, as researcher’s involvement includes high interaction with other participants. The strategic advantage of the method is, however, the ability to check potential strategies against the researcher’s embodied understanding of any emergent meanings at any point in time. Thus, thanks to the longevity perspective of the method, the relative cost of the research is reduced.

Conclusions   

Market-oriented ethnography does not analyze how a product/service is purchased or used but the full set of actions and behaviors that naturally co-occur with purchase or use of that product. Understanding the broader phenomena rather than the brand makes possible to distinguish quality spaces (co-constituting set of meanings in certain set of behaviors) and behavioral constellation (understanding co-occurring behaviors and their emergent meanings).

Whereas motivation and brand research are based on interviews, ethnography gives primacy to observation of behavior in context to provide a perspective in action and also premise to verbal reports in interviews for a perspective in action. These two methods have different roles in the interpretation building process and comparisons between the two data sources can provide an access to disjunctures between perspectives and perspectives in action.

Ethnography is a thorough method to discover more about the meaning of particular consumption constellations to a particular market segments. Overall, ethnography may help marketers to provide the products and services needed to narrow undesired gaps between behavior and goals, values, norms and beliefs. Also, Elliott and Jankel-Elliott suggest the modes introduced may improve positioning, promotional strategies based on cross-product complementaries, developing line extensions, product re-formulation and niche marketing strategies.

Reference: Elliott Richard and Jankel-Elliott Nick ‘Using ethnography in strategic consumer research’ Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, Volume 6, No. 4. 2003. pp. 215-223