July 04, 2009
Market Research Ethnography | Qualitative Market Research | ...discovering depth & range of buyer behavior & beliefs...| B2B & consumer market research | Power Decisions Group, Inc.
Click to Subscribe  

Market Research Tools:
Consumer Photo Ethnography

Marketing Research Tools

Focus Groups
Quantitative Research
MROC -- Online Communities
Qualitative Research
Depth Interviews
Market Research Panels
Executive Surveys
Photo-ethnography
Data Mining
Marketing Surveys
Online Web Surveys
Motivational Research
Competitive Intelligence
Idea Generation
Site Location Analysis
Demographic Analysis

Market Research Applications

Advertising Research
Product Research
Pricing Research
Concept Testing
Positioning Research
Marketing Due Diligience
Customer Satisfaction
Branding Research
Customer Satisfaction
Brand Equity Research
Market Segmentation
CRM Database Analysis
Ad Copy Testing
Market Opportunity Scan
Market Sizing
Competitive Analysis

Marketing Strategy Newsletter

Marketing Research Information Sources & Tutorials

Ethnography comes from social research and anthropology. Instead of asking consumers what they believe or what they have done as we do in survey research, we watch what consumers do.

Ethnography is a popular technique for the study of consumer-computer interaction (HCI). There are variations in how data is collected: 1)sending a consumer observer-researcher into stores, work place, and homes to observe real behavior; 2) giving subjects a video camera to record consumer interactions with the target product; or 3) having consumers record their behavior in a diary. As with any marketing research technique, ethnography has its measurement validity problems. Properly used however, it can yield exceptional insights to consumer behavior and attitudes useful for product redesign, new product concepts, discovering alternate product uses, and profiling true customer satisfaction.

For more on this topic, see our Market Research FAQ on Photo ethnography