I’m not usually one to hang around much LinkedIn group discussions. However, yesterday, I saw a German planner stating her increasing interest in ethnography and asking about methods for  ’getting to know and really understand the target groups and their tribes’. In our not exactly trend- and buzzword resistant industry it is very trendy to talk about culture and anthropology at the moment. However, the methods used are often desktop research (PSFK, TrendHunter, Springwise) and maybe qualitative interviews. That’s why I thought I’d chip in. I changed it a bit, but this is roughly what I posted.

In methodology, they usually distinguish three approaches. One is called Ethnography Proper, which often means years or at least months in the field, observing and studying. Ritson & Elliot’s paper about the social uses of advertising describes an approach like that. In our industry, I think what Ruby Pseudo does goes into this direction as well. You could of course argue that this is what real planning is supposed to do. Life as a huge field work project. Equipped with a notebook, spending time with people, chatting observing, interpreting and so on.

Then there’s what they call ‘accumulated ethnographic miniatures’, which are basically a serios of shorter stays in the field, interviews in the life world of the group of people you’re interested in, the collection of data by observing and the iterative thematisation of the collected data. Grant McCracken, without calling out the methods, talks a lot about this in his book Flock and Flow. Wieden+Kennedy Shanghai’s Boomtown Stories could also be mentioned. I think they have also cases in Doing Anthropology in Consumer Research. This is probably a more realistic approach towards using ethnography in planning. You unfortunately can’t really spend weeks and weeks with people, can you?

And then there’s of course virtual ethnography, observing and interpreting comments and conversations online (Andreea Nastase’s dissertation about GHD and transmedia planning touched upon this). Huge potential, but while it might sound easier, it definitely isn’t.

For my MA/MPhil thesis on the social uses of brand-related media content among youth in Austria, I used a combined and pretty unusual approach. I had my participants fill out media diaries and make facebook newsfeed screenshots, conducted interviews, did an exploratory group discussion and stayed in the field to observe for a few days – a high school. Loads of data, loads of small insights and loads of work.

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Bachmann, G. & Wittel, A., 2006. Medienethnographie. In J. Bergmann & R. Ayaß, hrsg. Qualitative Methoden der Medienforschung. Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag.

Bergmann, J., 2008. Medienethnographie. In U. Sander, F. von Gross, & K.-U. Hugger, hrsg. Handbuch Medienpädagogik. Vs Verlag, , S. 328-334.

Bergmann, J., 2006. Qualitative Methoden der Medienforschung – Einleitung und Rahmung.In Qualitative Methoden der Medienforschung. Rowohlt, , S. 13-41.

Flick, U., 2007. Qualitative Sozialforschung: Eine Einführung 3. Aufl., rororo.

McCracken, G., 2006. Flock and Flow: Predicting and Managing Change in a DynamicMarketplace, Indiana Univ Pr.

Ritson, M. & Elliott, R., 1999. The social uses of advertising: an ethnographic study of adolescent advertising audiences. Journal of Consumer Research, 26(3), S. 260––277.

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