GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
GfK Ethnography
Experience Innovation

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
Surfers in the dentist’s waiting room... right?

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
...We didn’t think so either

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
Culture gives experiences meaning… Ethnography uncovers that meaning
Cultures are our habitual, patterned,
socially shared ways of:
thinking
interpreting
acting
feeling
Everyone has multiple cultures:
ethnic
religious
regional
occupational
gender-based
Variable across time and space, and as
people leave and enter life stages

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
So what?

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
Cultures create requirements for products that “fit”

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
Cultures create requirements for products that “fit”
Rising middle class couples in Beijing

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
Cultures create requirements for products that “fit”
Chinese company providing social services in Manchester

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
Cultures create requirements for products that “fit”
Middle class single parents in Frankfurt

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
Cultures create requirements for products that “fit”
From board room to drilling platform of a global energy company

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
Understand the culture optimise the product
Knowing the structure of consumer experiences helps you:
Explore areas for new product development on a more solid
footing
Match products to deeply-embedded attitudinal and behavioural
dimensions
Communicate a product’s value in the right way
Extend the life of existing products by modifying them as tastes
and perceptions change
And that’s how ethnography – the disciplined analysis of
culture – helps marketers

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
Okay, but how do
you do it the right
way?

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
It helps to have a hundred-year tradition behind you
To an academically trained ethnographer,
ethnography is:
A description, of a system, activity, belief,
setting, culture, etc.
and an interpretation – not just a
summary – of that description
toward an end – both instrumental and
relevant
within constraints – of site, setting, time,
tools, materials, and solution spaces
Yes, this is a real ethnographer doing
fieldwork in Papua New Guinea

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
The goal: understand reality from the other’s point of view

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
Good ethnography is built on three principles
Situations and contexts are the units of study
Not individual people, but rather situations, environments, activities,
relations, interactions, processes are what matter
Disciplined treatment of data
All serious ethnographers use a toolkit for data collection and analysis
grounded in social scientific methods and theories
Ethnographers use this toolkit to interpret key data patterns that reveal the
cultural basis of consumer experience
A well-designed ethnographic study produces a consistent body of data that
can have utility beyond the study’s original scope
Two-way expertise
Participants are the experts on their own experiences
Ethnographers are experts at translating those experiences into a
descriptive and analytic account that clarifies business issues

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
Ethnography is not a method, it uses all methods
Secondary Formal Projectives Groups
& semiotic observation & exercises & events
Informal Interviews Self-
observation documentation
cultural site/situation sorting exercises participatory
inventories observations design
mapping
meta- & shadowing communities
historical associational tasks
video of practice/use
analyses ethnography scoring/ranking
semiotic
analysis
guerrilla research structured/semi- diaries/video
participant structured diaries
observation story-telling visual stories
lurking (online thematic tours “ping” studies
observation) debriefs (data-based (experience
reviews) sampling)

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
It all comes together thanks to rigorous analysis
This is by far the most important part of “doing
ethnography”

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
The key moment: when models of the structure of behavior start to
emerge
Models are ideal tools for thinking:
A shared object
Resilient
Extensible
Testable
Generalizable
Qualitative models derived from
ethnographic analysis will be as
compelling as the quantitative ones that
guide your decisions every day

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
Then we apply the theory to the business goal

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
Ethnographic research can propel innovation
EXPLORATION IDEATION OPTIMISATION FORECASTING MONITORING
• An exploration phase • An ideation phase to • An optimisation phase • A forecasting phase to • A monitoring phase to
to better understand transform these to develop products validate the potential assess very early the
consumer trends and insights into new fitting best with of your innovations innovation’s level of
deeply investigate a product ideas and concepts, and to fine- before launch, and success and adapt its
category, to generate concepts tune the whole optimise your marketing plan if
insights innovation mix marketing plan necessary

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
The Ethnography value proposition
An Ethnography
Not just what people say or how they think
Provides an understanding of how experiences work
So that you can support, improve and change them
What to expect from a good Ethnography
More than just innovative, in-context data gathering
Structured research design built on hypotheses about how the experience in question works in its
context(s)
Rolling hypothesis development throughout research process
Structured explanatory outputs framed around your business objectives

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
Some recent GfK ethnographic projects
Automotive
Early stage segment-specific concept development
Iterative user-centered design throughout car design process
Understanding emotional purchase drivers for Light Commercial Vehicle owners
Profiling of already defined target segments
Healthcare
Patient / Doctor interactions for Arthritis treatment
Treatment compliance: oncology, diabetes, etc.
Medical instrument design
Media
Video portraits of television news programme category Influentials
Understanding the role of internet search portals
Modeling the travel planning experience for web-site redesign
Consumer
How does alcoholic drink adoption happen?
Customer journey for in-store re-design
Global comparison of home interior style preferences
Innovation for snack foods in emerging markets

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
Some recent GfK ethnographic projects
Technology
Emerging markets technology needs
Global digital lifestyle segmentation
SME purchase decision making
Retail channel optimisation for mobile phone manufacturers
How can we get people to do more home printing?
Shopping process (via blogs)
User-centred mobile phone product design
Financial
Bank in-store marketing design
Mortgage experience understanding using blogs
Social
Young single mothers and exercise
Social benefits fraud
Fear of crime

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
GfK’s global ethnographic and qualitative research capability
Ethnographic and qualitative research teams in 39 countries
Global reach Over 350 ethnographic and qualitative researchers worldwide
Global capability managed by Centre of Excellence team of
senior practitioners
Close integration with quantitative methodologies through
global practice area Centres of Excellence, including Innovation
and NPD
Training through the GfK Academy
Training 175 people from 35 countries participated in two day Qualitative
and Ethnographic training seminars in 2008
programme
Online bulletin boards to support knowledge sharing across
GfK’s global qualitative and ethnographic research community

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
Case Study
Ethnography for innovation in the OTC cold-care category

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
Case Study
Understand the experience of having a cold

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
Case Study
Inventory people’s strategies for coping with a cold

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
Case Study
Turn the data into simple relevant models
The four stages of the common cold:
Something’s Different
Getting A Cold
Having A Cold
Getting Over A Cold

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
Case Study
… because models are good for thinking with
A shared object
a tool for thinking collectively
about key dimensions
Resilient
can withstand change, errors can
be corrected without invalidating
the basic idea
Testable, extensible
can apply to new data sets beyond
the one that generated the model
(and can be quantified later)

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
Case Study
Build an opportunity grid

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
Case Study
Explore the promising intersections

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
Case Study
Sketch initial concepts to the Experience Blueprint

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
Case Study
Take it as far as you can

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
Case Study
Re-orient product and brand strategies

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
What were the Commercial Benefits?
A Different Point of View
Remarkable Richness
Actionability and ‘Shelf Life’
By understanding both the user and the context, the pharmaceutical
company was able to identify opportunities to seize a competitive
advantage
Product packaging re-structured around the cold-stage model
Product and sub-brand positioning changed to better match consumers’
expectations

GfK Group Innovation | Ethnography 2009
Simon Pulman-Jones PhD
GfK Innovation | Ethnography
+44(0)20 7890 9246
simon.pulman-jones@gfk.com