Ethnographic Research: Q&A

As part of the course my lecturer has asked me to "find and explain in (my) blog 2 examples of how ethnographic research can be used for international business." In order to answer this question I have chosen to present a video and a short international marketing example.
For the first example here is the video:



That woman that presents herself as hating fast food, but as a regular buyer as well, may represent the rest of the american people (impossible to know from only one research video), thus allowing an international company to gain information about a potential and unknown market. This specific research is useful, for example, to some companies that specialize on ready-to-eat meals, since they can be considered as a competition for the fast food.


So, here is what is our interest on the video: What can these companies learn from the video? At first one may say that they can identify a niche: mothers with young kids, and, thanks to the information provided, the company trying  to get to know its potential market can attach values to the people being studied. In this case of ours some of the values the mother considers important on a meal are:
-Convenient: is first because it's the factor that drives her to buy the food she doesn't likes: fast food, so this one is really important. Is also evident when she says that even if they have time at home, when the family is together, sometimes she has to ask for fast food delivery. 
-Nutritious: she mentions it as one of her main concerns when feeding his kid with fast food, is second because it is not the decisive factor.
-Cheap: she goes all over how expensive is buying fast food and she calls it a "reap-off", never the less the two previous factors have more weight when she decides to buy food.

Image taken from: AdPulp, (April 4, 2008)

The second example is a general case derived from marketing principles. The main part in international marketing, as taught in the university, is to know the market segment you are trying to get into, the problem is how to do that? Well the answer may be predictable but yet sound: ethnographic research. This allows the companies, specially in an international context to know a little better the people who they're addressing. These means, for example, that the campaign "In an absolute world", from the vodka manufacturer Absolut ( image on the upper side) that appealed to Mexican's people  pride, would not have ended in a failed campaign because it ignored how the people of the U.S.A. would react (because they did and pretty badly).

An ethnographic research would have allowed the company to identify symbols or values to appeal to the same type of Mexican feeling without the controversy, but hey, there's no such thing as bad publicity (further discussion on this statement is accepted).


For further information check out the references:


AdPulp, (April 4, 2008), "Absolut Redraws the Map", [Online] Permanent URL: http://www.adpulp.com/archives/2008/04/ . Last accessed: February 3, 2010.


Youtube, (April 9, 2008), nextimagem's channel, "How American's Eat an ethnographic segment", [Online] Permanent URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCqjyo3M_og . Last accessed: February 3, 2010.