Ethnography arises with the need to solve the problem of the lack of veracity in the questions asked to the participants of surveys, focus groups, interviews and different tools of market research. The lack of truthfulness is due to the fact that people unconsciously lie or give false information in their answers, it may be because the question is misinterpreted by the respondent, because they do not perfectly know their habits and those of their relatives, or because they are influenced by their aspirations..
In an interview for Merca 2.0 magazine, Francisco Javier Solorio Montalván, operational administrative director of the company: Applied Statistics and Market Research. Affirming that the lack of veracity in the responses of the respondents is one of the current problems in the field of market research, Javier Solorio proposes: “I think that it is necessary to make people aware of the importance of spending time on the surveys that they answer, because the improvement of the products and services they consume depends on it. ”¹ Transmitting this information to consumers can foster interest in participating in the studies carried out and providing the information with sincerity.
Currently, researchers have resorted to a wide variety of ethnographic techniques, among which one of the most modern is through the internet. In the United States, clothing brands focused on the youth market create false profiles of young people on social networks in order to obtain brand perceptions and understanding the behavior and trends of present generations.
Another very original technique is the one used by the BBDO Interactive agency (the largest solutions company in Europe) which asked children from eight different countries, aged 12 to 15, to take in their hands the most precious belongings and the The researcher would take a photograph of them in his room to later analyze and compare them, with the images they were able to determine the impact that celebrities have on children and the degree of loyalty to brands. Within this same study, hundreds of adolescents around the world were asked to express their thoughts about their favorite brands through drawings, the results were very helpful in understanding the relationship of young people with brands.
Among the brands most selected by the boys were mainly clothing such as Nike or Fubu, car brands, cartoons, video games and even even the Mc Donald's fast food chain.
Ethnography is widely used in studies that aim to determine brand awareness and image; a common example is the exercise in which participants are asked to try to remember the brand by mentioning only the slogan. In order to identify the level of awareness of a brand, the respondent is asked to fill in the spaces left in the brand name, an example would be the following: (N_k_ for Nike). Questions are also used that go from the general to the particular, the objective is to determine the positioning that brands have in the consumer and the frequencies of use, with the traditional method of investigation the results could be misinterpreted and could be confused between consciousness, recognition and loyalty to a brand.
Within ethnography, simple but very useful tools can be used, such as the free association tool, which can be used to rate a product and compare it with others. In this exercise, you should start by asking perceptions about a generic product until you reach questions. more specific that talk about characteristics of a certain brand.
Ethnography is essential when the researcher wants to know the feelings of the respondents or when the topic to be dealt with is too delicate to talk about with an unknown person. Respondents lie when their true answer is unacceptable in their social life, therefore the answers will be biased to stereotypical answers or those expected by the pollsters. Respondents can not be very sincere if they are asked that a certain brand causes status or satisfies some other aspiration, for this reason the questions must be disguised or must be indirect, these techniques can be called projective.
Another very useful technique is that of observation, either within a focus group or in a natural environment. Thanks to the latest research and cutting-edge technology, researchers can identify different emotional reactions to certain situations in which an individual presents himself.
The ethnographic techniques to be used by researchers must be selected and modified to the needs of the research, characteristics of the respondents and the delicacy of the information.
Although common research can give very real and statistically biased results, it is not good to make very important decisions just taking this information into account, a classic case of this error is the one made by Caca-Cola in 1985, in reaction to the success of the The “The Pepsi Challenge” campaign (which consisted of carrying out tastings with blind tests between Pepsi and Coca-Cola), Coca-Cola carried out flavor tests on 190,000 people, obtaining favorable results for a new sweeter formula and very similar to flavor of Pepsi, Coca-Cola based on the study made change the formula and created a campaign to promote this change, consumer reactions were catastrophic to the point of anger against Coca-Cola, after a few months they had to go back to the old formula.In this case, Coca-Cola only based its study on the chemical composition of soda, leaving out very important aspects such as feelings towards the brand and what it represents for American society.
Ethnographic research is not intended to substitute or be better than traditional quantitative and qualitative research, but rather is an invaluable complement that will help to obtain fundamental information to avoid critical errors, creating, as never before, a deeper picture of consumer behavior.
References
Keller, Kevin L. (2008). Strategic Brand Administration, Mexico, Pearson Education, ed. 3rd, pp. 6.7, 129, 163-166, 325-328, 359-378
Lindstrom, Martin. (2006). Brandchild, Mexico, CECSA, pp. 329-333
Cervera, Alfredo. (2008, January 6). Access mktg job profile, Merca 2.0, 69, p. 12
Elliott, Richard & Jankel-Elliott, Nick. (2003). Using ethnography in strategic consumer research, England, Emerald, pp. 215-223.
