Ethnographic research is the branch of anthropology that involves trying to understand how people live their lives. This technique gives marketing researchers opportunities to hear consumers in their own words and see them in their own world. Through such observation, marketing researchers gain marketing insights that they may not gain in a focus group discussion or in-depth interview because consumers do not know what they are doing or why they are doing sometimes. Ethnographic research may be applied for many purposes such as collecting consumers’ opinion about a new product or packaging, identify and evaluate the execution of an advertising or communication effort, or just simply a deeper exploration of marketing researchers after conducting focus group discussion or in- depth interview

1. Ethnographic Research – a helpful technique to hear consumers’
voice
Ethnographic research is the branch of anthropology that involves trying to
understand how people live their lives. Researchers put their efforts to observe
and listen to consumers in a no directed way, rather than ask specific and highly
practical questions directly to consumers. Through understanding people’s
behaviors in consuming, researchers find out how consumers perceive the new
product, and how such the new product may impact on their lives. Thanks for
insights coming from researchers, marketers are able to identify future trends that
inform the company’s future strategies for current and upcoming products.
Sometimes, consumers do not know what they are doing and why, which through
being acknowledge these gaps, marketers see new opportunities. Specifically , top
three reasons why ethnographic research is important to marketers are:
The opportunity to hear your audience in their own words and see them in
their own world:
Observation a particular action in a particular environment allows researchers
identify habits, ideas and desires of consumers, which are not only providing
information, but also give researchers the connection between pieces of
information that are gathered. Therefore, researchers gain insights into the way
opinions are formed and how they are connected to cultural practices and
presuppositions.
There is always a surprise inside:
Sometimes, consumers do not know what they are doing and why. In traditional
researches, which researchers ask consumers specific and highly practical
questions may not explore the missing information those consumers are not even

2. aware of them. Therefore, observing actions in very natural ways will highlight
those missing information that will be a new opportunity to marketers.
Ethnography is multi-tasking tool:
There are different ways to gather information for ethnographic research includes:
 Ethnographic observation
 Semi-structured interviews
 In-depth interviews
 Participant journals
Many researchers apply a combination of above methods. For example,
researchers may record audio and video of semi-structured interviews, in-depth
interviews while keeping a field journal of descriptions, interpretations, evaluations,
pictures and cultural artifacts. Researchers will have a mixture of data collection
methods and records to explore wealth of different information
Ethnographic research may be useful for developing communication and
marketing strategies, informing organizational policies, designing products and
web content. It can be used to inform ad, PR and social campaign. It supports
marketers in understanding how messages chain out and are discussed in a
community, and therefore affect the brand. Some particular situation that
marketers should perform an ethnographic market research:
 To uncover new product or packaging opportunities
 To shape advertising or communication strategy
 To supplement other qualitative or quantitative research
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Compiled by AMR Group (Marketing Research in Vietnam-Nghien Cuu Thi Truong
Viet Nam) on 2014
Source: Harvard Business Review, Doyle Research and Forsmashgroup
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3. This article is compiled by AMR Group to provide updated information on markets.
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