Presented to:

Research International March 2002

Bangkok

Signs and Symbols in Qualitative

Analysis:

Training Seminar on Semiotics and Ethnography

p r a c t i c a g r o u p l l c 2 0 7 e. o h i o # 3 7 0 c h i c a g o 6 0 6 1 1

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Anthropology and Market Research

Anthropology:

The study of cultures – what

people do and why….

Market Research:

The study of consumers –

what they do and why….

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Anthropology: Study of Culture

Semiotics: Culture-bound texts…

• Books, TV, movies

• Objects, e.g., clothing

• Advertising

• Retail

Ethnography: Analyses…

• Habits, values, beliefs

shared within culture

Through…

• Observation, in situ

interviews, diaries,

video documentaries

Brand positioning, creative strategy development,

merchandising, new product development

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Anthropology: Study of Culture

• Why, why, why – Semiotics

• Good for…understanding the language and cultural landscape staked out by a category (important for new product pitches, competitive brand advertising analysis, marketing of global brands); inquiring about impact of place on purchasing and creating a brand.

• Emphasizes and relies on cultural categories or values that are in play in advertising, merchandizing or media.

– Ethnography • Exploring not refining

• Good for…bringing audience to life; understanding new or emerging categories (e.g., internet appliances, SUV’s 12 years ago); new products, e.g, febreze; brand positioning

• Emphasizes and relies on lived culture of consumer and product (not psychological needs, states or traits)

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Semiotics

The Theory

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What is Semiotics?

• Study of signs and meanings

– Multidisciplinary roots

• Anthropology

• Philosophy

• Linguistics

• Cultural studies

• Sign = word, object…anything that is used to

stand for something else

– Communicative ‘currency’ that we use tacitly, everyday

– That we can decode because we are culturally

competent

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What is Semiotics?

• A sign…

– Anything that can be used to tell a lie… (Eco)

– Something which stands to somebody for something in

some respect or capacity… (C.S. Peirce)

– Ceci n’est pas une pipe…

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What is Semiotics?

• What are the signs

here?

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What is Semiotics?

• Or here?

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What is Semiotics?

• Or here?

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What is Semiotics?

Sign Grounded in a

Cultural System

Signifier Expressive elements:

Color

Words

Images

Tactile

Scent

Signified Referent meaning: Denoted object or idea,

Communicative

codes,

Cultural symbols,

Ideologies

A sign consists of the Signifier, the material object, and the Signified, which is its meaning.

These are only divided for analytical purposes: in practice a sign is always thing-plus-meaning.

Williamson (1978)

cf. Saussure

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What is Semiotics?

• Peirce’s Indivisible Triad

– Harvard logician (vs. linguist Saussure)

– A sign entails 3 correlates….the object represented, the

characteristics of the sign itself (representamen), and

the structures by which the representamen is

contextualized and understood (the interpretant)

Interpretant

Object Representamen

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What is Semiotics?

– What are the representamens, interpretants, objects in

this ad?

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How do signs work?

• How do signs gain their meanings? (C.S. Peirce)

1. By Law or fiat: the arbitrary (referential) relationship

• words and objects have no inherent relationship

• “tree” does not bear any inherent relationship to a tree

• strictly speaking, a symbol

2. Iconicity: a shared visual or auditory property

• “meeiow” is the sound a cat makes, blueprints or diagrams

• logos are often iconic representations, bearing some visual resemblance

to what they are representing

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How do signs work?

• How do signs gain their meanings?

3. Indexicality: Object or word becomes a sign by virtue

of juxtaposition/contiguity to real-life events and behavioral

contexts • smoke and fire

• speech styles and their contexts of use, e.g, Joos’ 5 Clocks

• clothing styles – meaning is conferred by virtue of the original wearers,

e.g., hip hop trousers

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How do signs work?

• Indexes, icons and symbols are not mutually

exclusive

– “Hey” as a greeting is both symbol (the word ‘hey’)

and indexical (informal greeting style)

– Symbols often acquire indexical meanings

• American flag

• Irreplaceable objects (Grayson and Schulman, 2000)

• Brands…

– Think about cars for a moment….

• And such meanings can change over time…

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The role of culture

• We comprehend signs because we are culturally competent…

– We know the conventions… • How we talk

– Joos’ 5 clocks

– Tone of voice, gaze, gestures (grounded in the conventions of face-to-face interactions)

– Styles of speech – slang, rap, formal genres, interview

• Unconscious until we trip over them, e.g., cartoons

– We ‘get it’ or laugh because of a system of conventional knowledge

• Conventions are grounded in larger social and cultural landscapes (videotape)

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The role of culture

• Cartoons

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The role of culture

• Cartoons

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The role of culture

• And more cartoons…

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The role of culture

• Cartoons

– New Yorker cartoons that violated crucial conventions

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The role of culture

• We comprehend signs because we are culturally

competent…

– We know the cultural metaphors or values

• Metaphors: Lakoff and Johnson

• E.g., the rhetoric of computing metaphors in the US today

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The role of culture

• Conventions of art/of representation vs.

conventions of style

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The role of culture

• What metaphors are

being invoked and

violated here?

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The role of culture

• We comprehend signs because we are culturally

competent…

– We know the ideologies…broadly shared constructs

that structure cultural identity

• Examples: nature vs. culture; business vs. monopoly, private

vs. public; human vs. machine

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The role of culture

– E.g., the specter of disease a century apart: what is different?

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The role of culture

– Nature vs. culture

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Semiotic Analysis

• Semiotic analysis makes the unconscious explicit

– Decodes communicative events

• Advertising

• Conversation

• Architecture

– Identifies both signifier and signified

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Semiotic Analysis

• Seeing what is there and knowing what is not:

Paradigmatic analysis

– Saussure: Meaning is found in the difference

Concepts are purely differential and defined not by

their positive content but negatively by their relations

in the other terms of the system. Their most precise

characteristic is in being what the others are not.

Saussure, Course of General Linguistics.

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Semiotic Analysis

– E.g., speech styles are paradigmatic alternatives.

Intimate: yo.

Casual: the window..

Consultative: It seems chilly. Would you close it?

Formal: Might I ask you to close the window?

Paradigmatic axis

Syntagmatic

axis

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Semiotic Analysis

– So too in advertisements where visual alternatives are

paradigmatic alternatives

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Semiotic Analysis

• Williamson (1978) Catherine Deneuve vs. Margeaux

Hemingway

– Ads signify because we know what Deneuve and Hemingway

represent beyond the space of the ad. We use this knowledge to

interpret…

Deneuve class, dignity

Hemingway free spirit/earthiness..

Picasso: exotic; artistic

etc.: ??

Paradigmatic axis

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Breakout Session

• Identifying Conventions

– Organize yourselves by country of residence

– Using materials you brought with you on coffee

(advertising, places, or coffee in your own home)

– Identify and list as many conventions as you can

• Don’t worry about larger messages

• Your focus should be on linguistic or visual conventions (sign

vehicles that you recognize as signs…) embodied in the

photos.

• No detail is too small

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Semiotics

The Practice

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Semiotics in Marketing and Advertising

• 3 premises

– Nothing exists in a vacuum (things, ideas, actions)

– No communication is purely referential • When residents, executives, advertisers, workers, shoppers,

consumers or government ‘speak’ they communicate cultural assumptions, conceptualizations, attitudes, underlying beliefs

– The meanings of ‘things’ is interactively produced between producer and consumer

• Semiotics is a way to explore the interactive exchanges between producer and consumer by focusing on “the conditions under which meanings are produced and apprehended” (Pinson 1998)

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Semiotics in Marketing and Advertising

• For marketers and advertisers

– Product positioning

– Creative strategies

– Service development

– Merchandising

• Sources of data: The Texts

– Conversations

– Advertisements

– Packaging

– Retail (or service) environments

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Semiotics in Marketing and Advertising

• Interpretation

– Depends on our powers of cultural knowledge and

observation

– Need to be culturally cognizant/a cultural expert

In order to make links between signifier and signified

(or the representamen and the interpretant, cf. Peirce)

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Semiotics in Marketing and Advertising

What are the key values defining a category?

• What does it mean to travel (airline

advertising)

• What is Palm (or any brand) in-store?

What have advertisers pre-supposed

about their audience?

• What does it mean to be a woman today?

• A teenager?

What is the retail experience?

Expert Analysis

Consumer

Understanding

What symbols/signs do consumers notice? • e.g, how do consumers ‘read’ nutritional

labels?

• how do consumers interpret a brand’s retail

environment?

Texts

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Analytic Frameworks

• Any number of frameworks have been invoked

methodologically as semiotic analysis

– Citing various linguistic, philosophical, folkloric

traditions

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Analytic Frameworks

• Le carré sémiotique: a structural opposition (see Greimas and

Cortés, 1979)

– A and B are structural contrasts – culture bound and empirically

motivated, e.g, male vs. female or in the context of a hypermarket

practical values and existential (human) values.

– ‘Not A’ and ‘not B’ are relationships of contradiction. In the

hypermarket case, not practical = diversionary and not existential =

critical (see Floch 2001for detailed illustration).

A B

Not B Not A

Relationship of Contrast “contrariety”

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Analytic Frameworks

• The enunciative frame: based on the pragmatics of

language (see Defrance, 1988; cf. Jakobson)

Implied sender Implied addressee

Implicated relationship

Implied construction of the world x

Implied relationship

of addressee to world x

Implied relationship

of sender to world x

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Analytic Frameworks

• Layers of signification

• From the micro to the macro: iterative and back

and forth

connotations

values/codes/myths

ideologies

Signified

denoted signifier

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Advertising

• The questions or objectives

– About categories • What is the cultural discourse staked out by a category?

• What is the currency of values put into play by advertisers?

– About brands • What are the cultural symbols or values presupposed by a

particular brand?

– About target audiences • What is femininity? What does it mean to be a mother? A

teenager?

• What does advertising tell us about the experience, tensions, dreams or values of a particular audience?

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Advertising

• Implications for…

– Positioning brand

– Pitching new business

– Taking a brand into new market

– Evaluating competitors in global marketplace

– Speaking to a particular audience

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Advertising

Pile of Ads

• Video and print

• Current/historical

• Key brands represented

Analysis

• Language and visuals

• Modality

• Who is the viewer?

Cultural Themes

Framing the Category

Category and/or Brand Meanings

Implied

Metaphors

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Advertising

• The process

• Breadth: comparison makes the analytic task easier

– One can chart paradigmatic alternatives

» At the signifier level

» At value, metaphor or ideological levels

– If the category is the unit of analysis, need all the major brands

– If a target audience is the unit of analysis, need to know the

range of treatments

• Temporal depth

– Secondary, unless one’s objective is change over time…

Pile of Ads

• Video and print

• Current/historical

• Key brands represented

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Advertising

• The process

• Organize by brand

• First Pass: Observations about the whole – what strikes you big

or small, element or code

– Identify expressive elements (signifiers)

» Visual symbols, icons, indexes (colors, images)

» Speech styles

» Use of specific modalities, eg., reality, dream, science fiction, child

drawing

» Implied viewer

– Contemplate higher level meanings: metaphors, values, codes,

cultural ideologies or symbol structures – and make notes

Analysis

• Language and visuals

• Modality

• Who is the viewer?

Tick-tacking back and forth

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Advertising

• Who is the viewer?

• What is the modality?

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Advertising

• And who is the viewer here?

• Modality?

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Advertising

• What are the signifiers here?

Wired Magazine, September, 1995

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Advertising

• Modality?

• Viewer?

• Expressive elements

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Advertising

– Elements,

modality,

viewer?

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Advertising

• Elements, modality, viewer?

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Advertising

• Pass 2: Tick tacking between levels by brand

Second pass at verbal

and visual elements…

Codes, values

Other expressive elements,

e.g., text

Tacit metaphors

Most salient signifiers

Ideologies or particularly compelling

cultural constructions at play

Re-evaluating the visuals

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Advertising

• Pass 3: Building brand by brand to cover a

category or audience

Category or Audience Analysis

Recurrent codes

Recurrent cultural constructions

Overarching metaphors…

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Case Study: Airlines (US, 90s)

• 1997

• Semiotics as “Competitive Analysis”

– Initial stages of pitch for Delta Airlines business

• Quick, insightful analysis within 2 weeks

• Grounded planners and account teams in category

– Provided a starting point for the pitch

• Category issues, e.g., banality of it all

• Hypotheses, e.g., business traveler as liege lord vs. warrior

• Key questions, e.g., what is travel today?

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Pitching Delta

Methods Focus on international business travel

Ads pulled in U.S. and London/Europe by agency offices Past year

Print and TV

Shipped to BRS

1 week later Telephone debrief (ship relevant ads first)

• Outlined thoughts

• Account planning team

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Pitching Delta

General themes in international travel Reach (breadth of service, frequency)

Replete with traditional symbols of business

Plane is a well-oiled machine at your disposal. The business traveler

is a bit machine-like as well -- programmed, on a mission

Knowing traveler’s needs Preoccupation with amenities (showers, faxes, telephones, video

machines)

Emphasis on passengers’ states of mind, and airline's ability to deliver

it to passengers

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Pitching Delta

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Pitching Delta

Travel and Travelers: Implicit Assumptions Travel is freedom (new worlds, exploration)

Dated; flying is no longer exceptional

(Business)Travel is pioneering: travelers are

mercenaries Power, achievement, risk, desire

Travel is a luxury: travelers are elite Liege lords (seems very 80s) to be taken care of/cosseted

Brands tend to emphasize the latter 2; too much overlap

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Pitching Delta

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Pitching Delta

Travel is a journey Discovery/self-discovery

Exploration/dreaming

A plane is a place to think, imagine, dream

Epitomized by British Airways

More holistic view of travel and travelers

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Pitching Delta

Breakthrough advertising: BA Spare, surreal, poetic -- symbols of dreams and their

boundless nature

Cabin/seat design: technology that transforms (like

early Apple ads, you + machine = creative force)

Traveler is mercenary : UA Man is machine

Plane is office or respite before battle

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Pitching Delta

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Pitching Delta

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Pitching Delta

Being in control Critical for business travelers

Brands differ in what sort of control is conferred

Not a fixed relationship; would change with values Control = power of the mind (to think, dream)

Control = ability to conduct business (do deals, prepare, conquer. . .)

Control = commanding others (requests, treatment, being pampered)

Hypotheses about today’s b’ness traveler;

challenges for airlines

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Case Study: Airlines (US, 2000)

• Update: 2000

– Shifting discourse on ‘what is travel’

An airline is a bit of infrastructure

to get you from here to there with

least annoyance.

An airline is the catalysis to

your travel experience.

Moving away from travel-as-

journey: a reflection of SW’s

success and cynicism with the

industry?

1990s

2000

A Transformational Experience

An Instrumental Activity

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Case Study: Airlines (US, 2000)

• And different voices

We don’t presume to know you

the person, but we know

travelers: savvy co-worker,

keen observer, irreverent critic,

witty uncle.

We know what’s really

important to you: friend,

partner

We know the meaning of travel:

Teacher, catalyst, advisor

A Transformational Experience

An Instrumental Activity

Virgin (anti-BA), SW (anti-industry)

Vs. Continental, Delta (TV), BA

US Airways, Delta (print)

American, United

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Computer Ads

• 1980s, US

– (video)

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Computer Ads

• 2002

– Macintosh: What has

changed?

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Breakout Session

• Coffee advertisements

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Coffee Advertisements (US)

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Coffee Advertisements (US)

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Retail Environments

• Recognizes

– Retail experience is a locus of exchange between consumer and

producer

• The questions or objectives

– What is the purchase experience?

• E.g., what is beer at 7/11? At high end grocery?

• How important is retail in purchase decision?

• What are consumers shopping for when they shop for PDAs, cars,

cereal or beer?

– Role of packaging, displays, spatial configurations sales staff in

purchasing experience

– Comparison of brands

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Retail Environments

• Implications for…

– POP merchandizing

– Design of retail

– Services

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Retail Environments

• Observational (expert analysis)

• Often, in conjunction with consumer readings of

the environment

– After the fact focus groups (cf. Floch’s analysis of the

hypermarket in Lyon)

– On site, in process interviewing (Rockport shoes)

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Retail: Shopping for PDAs

• Protocol

Objectives

• Understand PDAx in the retail environment

• Role of packaging, displays, sales people in the purchase experience

• Clarify differences between PDAx and competitors in presentation, how shopped

• Explore implicit consumer objectives and goals when they shop for electronic

organizers/PDAs

What are their articulated ideas?

What are their questions? Desires? Concerns?

What is the role of brands?

What are the most important resources in store: sales people, displays, brochures?

• Explore the sales environment

How are PDA options presented visually, verbally, implicitly?

What is the role of displays?

What do sales associates sell? Benefits (what are they)? Price?

How do they explain the products? Do they mention brands?

How do sales associates view PDAs in the tech world of wireless?

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Retail: Shopping for PDAs

• Protocol

Observe

•Store layout

•How is PDAx positioned in store?

•Any product demos?

•Prominence of PDAx vs. competitors

•Relation of PDAx products to other wireless devices

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Retail: Shopping for PDAs

• Protocol

Browsing patterns around PDA technology (track consumers as they move)

• Interest in/behavior around PDAx technology, e.g., browsing? Actively

looking into PDAs?

Role of salesperson (expert, resource, do they go looking for sales person?)

Do they bring in any materials with them (notes, ads, magazines)?

Have they looked at PDA’s before? Have they checked out online options?

• Attitude/demeanor of customers: confident, hesitant, experts???

Are browsers coming to the store to check out options, get smart, or do they

already know what they want?

• What are shoppers looking at, drawn to, touching, asking questions about, etc.

What do they see (e.g., demos, brochures)

Displays: pick up? Touch? Play with?

Use of packaging

Do they see packaging before they buy?

Examine?

• Any differences in behavior around PDAs vs. other wireless technology (e.g.,

pagers, cell phones)

80

Retail: Shopping for PDAs

• Protocol

Conversations/Sales interactions

• Language used by browsers and sales associates

• Questions, responses

• How well versed are shoppers? What do they know/not know?

• Role of brands (for consumers and/or sales associates)

E.g., are consumers shopping brands or technology? Are sales associates

selling brands or technology?

What gets customers excited?

When is PDAx mentioned? (vs. other brands)

• Barriers to buying?

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The Store Environment

• Design Character: 2 Paradigms (observed)

– Explore...

• CompUSA (Chicago, Boston)

– For consumers of digital technology…no paper, emphasis on

connectivity and the new economy, spacious, colorful, alternative

music playing…

• Explore, circumnavigate, play

• 16 of 66 Browsers conversed with salespeople

– Grab and Go...

• Staples (Boston)

– utilitarian, warehouse-like, bright red and white, emphasis on

efficiency (“supplies”) of every sort for doing business.

• Find what you need and go

• 1 of 15 Browsers conversed with salespeople

• Less traffic around PDAs

82

Signage and Location

• Ambiguous messaging

Column in Staples: severely constraining

the ability to browse.

Organizers for $19.95 along side $300 brands

“Canon” signage above endcap display

83

Signage and Location

• “Palm” is a generic name for the category, as in “Where are the

Palms?”

– Compare to signage for Apple

“PC Companions”, “Computers” or “Imaging.”

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Packaging

• Packaging is often inaccessible

– Behind glass in a case at CompUSA and Staples

– In “lock-up” (another room across the store)

– (Though reinforces decision)

• “Oh, can I see the box?”

• “What’s all in here?”

• “What else do I need?”

• Crucial in the absence of other stimuli

– When there is no conversation, the package is a way to visualize what

PDAx is or what PDAx could be.

– When displays are ‘dead’ and sales people are unavailable (or unfamiliar)

with products, visible (and accessible) packaging is a crucial resource for

Browsers.

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Displays

• Dead Displays: Detritus on the counter

– Induces frustration and irritation

• Feel stupid when nothing happens

• Forces reliance on salespeople for information and assessment, e.g.,

“The graffiti? It’s easy, really.”

• Forces conversations with salespeople that may not be desired

– In the worst cases, even the packages are not accessible

• Customers leave the store irritated.

• Not helping the PDAx brand.

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Retail Environments: shoes

• Enlisting the consumer in the decoding process

– About shoes and their significance in life

– About shopping

– Our goal: the intersection of shoes and shopping

– Marketing goal: branding a specific brand of shoes in

retail space

87

Retail environments: shoes

Favorite Stores (Take pictures if possible)

Ok, let’s start with the store around here you would consider a favorite environment … …

First just shop as you normally would and I’ll follow along … I

want you to basically “think aloud” as we go along,

Narrate for me what’s going through your head … and from time to time I’ll have questions

(Encourage respondents to really shop and do what they would normally do …)

Where does person go first … What’s mood upon entering … Thinking about what?

What catches the attention? What does the person do in the store?

What kinds of things are the shopping buddies saying and not saying to each other? In what

ways? What’s the interaction? How are they interacting with others in the store?

88

Retail environments: shoes

The Store Experience

In general what kind of thoughts does the store inspire? What kinds of moods?

Hopes? Fears? This store makes you feel like you are who? Or, what kind of person?

Like doing what?

What are the catalysts for changing moods/thoughts … positive and negative?

What is this experience as a shopping experience? What do you feel it’s trying to

make you think about itself – tell you about its brand of products?

What are you thinking about that doesn’t have anything to do with shopping for something

in here?

What are the kinds of things that make this store one you like? One you don’t like? Most

and least favorites parts/places? If you had a magic wand, what would you do?

What would you do to make this store more “a fit” with you? What kinds of things would it

offer – in terms of overall environment as well as other features/services?

How does this store compare to others?

Leaving the store …

How do you feel now as you leave? What are you thinking/feeling? How’s that different than

when you went in?

What kind of experience do you feel you just had?

Now, where to next … why?

89

Shopping Today

• Ideally, shopping environments offer a cohesive presence;

favorite stores are coherent.

Urban Outfitter Music, warehouse architecture,

color, and products are all of a

piece….(even the bubble wrap

packaging)

Says: Trendsetting, hip, casual

“Dot-org rather than dot-com”

Nordstrom’s Orchids, piano, presentation of

goods, fountains, uses of lighting,

infamous service policies...

Says: Tradition, Class

“Grand and magnificent”

Ross (discount) Fluorescent lights, linoleum floors,

piles and racks of clothes, broad

array of customers...

Says: No pretension, do it yourself,

freedom

“A 5 minute treasure hunt”

90

Shopping Today

• Favorite, coherent stores

Polo Sport Beautiful sales staff, “purple

labels,” the refreshing colognes to

spray on, the groupings of go-

together items -- mannequins

match

Says: “Buy these clothes and you’ll

be perfect.”

Bloomingdales Multiple departments, rows upon

rows of things, multiple brands,

matter of fact, no-nonsense staff

Says: Functional, I’ll be able to find

what I need; also gluttony, like

looking at full dessert case

Agnes B. Get new pieces weekly, natural

wood, light, one straight room, no

unnecessary décor, efficient layout

Says: Up to date clothes, easy, a

place to find out

91

Shopping Today

• Banana Republic sets a current standard

Banana Republic Size, stairs, beautiful wood,

flowers, matching details of

frequently changing décor, pastels,

good refund policy

Says: Hospitality, graciousness,

attention to detail, up to date

J. Crew Tables laid out with piles, no

flowers, cash register desk,

somber color aesthetic

Says: More establishment,

east coast

French Connection The fcuk lettering, the unusual

humor in posters, splashy

colors/patterns like you “might

wear on a vacation”

Says: An alternative to Banana

and Gap, a little against the grain

92

Shopping Today

• Environments evaluated in terms of coherence, favorites or not

Prada Cement floors, few items relative

to the space, sales staff “hidden” in

the back, don’t approach you

Says: “A little off base, modern,

sleek, elite, cold and lifeless.

Country Road Attention from staff who remember

you; chairs, refreshments for

shopping companions, beautiful

window displays

Says: We take care of you,

“informed pampering”

93

Breakout Session: Coffee Places

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Breakout session: coffee places

• Objectives

– Marketing: design new service offerings for Starbucks

Bangkok

• What is coffee in Bangkok…

• What is being bought and sold (symbolically speaking)?

• Teams of 3 or 4

– Bangkok residents disperse yourself among the teams

– Develop/modify observational protocol

– Return by 16:00

95

Breakout session: coffee places

• What is coffee in Bangkok?

– Debriefing session

• What are the signifiers/what is signified

• Metaphors/cultural values/ideologies

• Using other places (US, Oaxaca, New Zealand, other places for

which we have illustrations) as the paradigmatic alternatives…

– What is coffee here?

96

Breakout session: coffee places

• Coffee in Bangkok

– How is this Bangkok

coffee and not?

97

Breakout session: coffee places

• The artisanal form?

– Marketplace

98

Breakout session: coffee places

• The marketplace: new traditions?

99

Breakout session: coffee places

• Coffee in Bangkok

– What don’t we know?

– What does pure observation miss?

100

Ethnography

The Theory

101

Ethnography: What is it?

• First back to the beginning …

102

Anthropology: Study of Culture

Semiotics: Culture-bound texts…

• Books, TV, movies

• Objects, e.g., clothing

• Advertising

• Retail

Ethnography: Analyses…

• Habits, values, beliefs

shared within culture

Through…

• Observation, in situ

interviews, diaries,

video documentaries

Brand positioning, creative strategy development,

merchandising, new product development

103

Anthropology: Study of Culture

• Why, why, why – Semiotics

• Good for…understanding the language and cultural landscape staked out by a category (important for new product pitches, competitive brand advertising analysis, marketing of global brands); inquiring about impact of place on purchasing and creating a brand.

• Emphasizes and relies on cultural categories or values that are in play in advertising, merchandizing or media.

– Ethnography • Exploring not refining

• Good for…bringing audience to life; understanding new or emerging categories (e.g., internet appliances, SUV’s 12 years ago); new products, e.g, febreze; brand positioning

• Emphasizes and relies on lived culture of consumer and product (not psychological needs, states or traits)

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What is Ethnography?

• In-situ, about ‘lived’ experience

– In the home, store, office,

– In the kitchen, the den, the wherever

– Research key is “being there,” but not always in person

• Via video or audio tape, photographs

• Respondent retellings of stories, events

• Respondent enactments …

105

What is Ethnography?

• Participating as well as

observing

– Talk is crucial

• U.S. News and World

Report (August 1998) did

not get it right.

106

Anthropological Ethnography

Observation* Behavior

Language

Objects

Interaction

Context

Participation* Participant of Event

Conversational

Reactions, Thoughts,

Feelings, Realizations

Interacting with others

* These are only divided for analytical purposes: in practice a ethnography is always both.

Ethnography “Each phenomenon ought to be studied through the

broadest range possible of its concrete manifestations.”

-- Malinowski, Argonauts of the Western Pacific, 1922

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Ethnographic Goals

The Insider

Point

of View

Cultural

Meaning

Anthropological

Goal for

Ethnography

Understanding

the Consumer

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Ethnographic Goals

• Why cultural meanings?

– Meaning because humans are semiotic spinners

• “The concept of culture I espouse … is essentially a semiotic

one. Believing, with Max Weber, that man is an animal

suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take

culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be … an

interpretative one in search of meaning.”

– Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, 1973

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Ethnographic Goals

• Why cultural meanings?

– “Culture” because meanings are extra-individual • Data on habits, values, beliefs, feelings, actions are based on

and in individual lives, but the analysis is not.

• Geertz: “Culture is public because meaning is. You can’t wink (or burlesque one) without knowing what counts as winking ..”

• Malinowski: “We are not interested in what A or B may feel qua individuals, in the accidental course of their own personal experiences – we are interested only in what they feel and think qua members of a given community. …The social and cultural environment in which they move forces them to think and feel in a definite manner.”

– The target ‘consumer’ is more than that one person.

110

Ethnographic Goals

• Why cultural meanings?

– We need to know the insider meanings of actions, in

Geertzian terms: discern eye twitches from winks and

parodist winks.

111

Ethnography

The Practice

112

The Art of Ethnography

• Get details, details, details, and more details

– Nothing is too small, build the meanings and the ‘story’

from the details

• A process of induction … let the details build

– Details of language, of behavior, of objects, of context

large and small, of as much as you can take in

– Search for the details in stories …

Mindset: The clues of cultural meaning will be found in details. The

larger pattern of cultural meaning will emerge in the analysis.

Crucial: Record the details, you will forget. The record is needed for

later analytic review.

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The Art of Ethnography

• Rid one’s head of (cultural) assumptions

– Need to be asking ‘what is going on?’

• As if you’re the brother from another planet.

– See that movie if you have not

• So that cultural symbols and practices and their meaning can

be (re)learned, (re)experienced, (re)tested.

– Consumptive/cultural contexts are constantly in motion …

Mindset: I have no clue what goes on in other people’s heads or lives. I don’t know

what they do or what they think and feel. I don’t know why things are as they are.

Crucial: Continually interrogate your own assumptions. Ask: What am I assuming?

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The Art of Ethnography

• Consider everything and everyone in the environment

– Utilize the fact of being “in-situ” (in ‘the field’)

• Everything is a prop for understanding as well as discussion

– Again without assuming you know

» Is the picture in the living room loved or hated? What is the story?

• Ask for guided tours of the front as well as backstage

– It’s all data

• The purposeful, the mistake, the planned, the unplanned, action,

inaction, talk, silence, the visible, the absent, elation, disappointment,

the match of talk and behavior, the mismatch, respondent interactions

with others, what others say and do, what you do and think.

Mindset: It’s all data. Everything is replete with cultural meaning.

Crucial: At first take in and note as much as possible, even if it seems unimportant.

You might not appreciate the cultural meaning or importance until later realizations.

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The Art of Ethnography

• For instance, to investigate kitchen cleaning, one

goes into consumers’ kitchens to watch them

clean.

Showing how the sink is used

as ‘bucket’ for sponge mop

when cleaning kitchen floor.

116

The Art of Ethnography

• But, the details of what’s backstage helps to show

what kinds of ‘dirt’ are likely to be in the kitchen

as well as what a kitchen means.

Husband’s favorite foods

in the freezer.

Medicines visible in the breadbox.

May seem anomalous or unimportant,

until it’s realized that many people keep

meds in the kitchen, that spice cabinets

have turned into medicine cabinets …

Pictures and important family

papers instead of food, dishes, pots,

utensils in cabinets.

117

The Art of Ethnography

• Who and what’s outside of the kitchen also tells

the story.

The chair in the bedroom is the place to relax, be by oneself,

a place for ‘my time’ rather than kitchens’ ‘family time.’

Husband and two kids. A husband who works all the time, in the

house wearing his work clothes … a reason for individual ‘fast’ food.

118

The Art of Ethnography

• What’s central to kitchen and kitchen cleaning

may not have been what was expected …

Pets … the microwave … about what you see.

119

The Art of Ethnography

What is a kitchen?

Brand positioning, creative strategy development,

merchandising, new product development

Cultural

Meaning

What is kitchen cleaning?

120

The Art of Ethnography

• Get details, details, details, and more details

– Nothing is too small, build the meanings and the ‘story’

from the details

• A process of induction … let the details build

– Details of language, of behavior, of objects, of context

large and small, of as much as you can take in

– Search for the details in stories …

Mindset: The clues of cultural meaning will be found in details. The

larger pattern of cultural meaning will emerge in the analysis.

Crucial: Record the details, you will forget. The record is needed for

later analytic review.

121

The Art of Ethnography

• Rid one’s head of (cultural) assumptions

– Need to be asking ‘what is going on?’

• As if you’re the brother from another planet.

– See that movie if you have not

• So that cultural symbols and practices and their meaning can

be (re)learned, (re)experienced, (re)tested.

– Consumptive/cultural contexts are constantly in motion …

Mindset: I have no clue what goes on in other people’s heads or lives. I don’t know

what they do or what they think and feel. I don’t know why things are as they are.

Crucial: Continually interrogate your own assumptions. Ask: What am I assuming?

122

The Art of Ethnography

• Consider everything and everyone in the environment

– Utilize the fact of being “in-situ” (in ‘the field’)

• Everything is a prop for understanding as well as discussion

– Again without assuming you know

» Is the picture in the living room loved or hated? What is the story?

• Ask for guided tours of the front as well as backstage

– It’s all data

• The purposeful, the mistake, the planned, the unplanned, action,

inaction, talk, silence, the visible, the absent, elation, disappointment,

the match of talk and behavior, the mismatch, respondent interactions

with others, what others say and do, what you do and think.

Mindset: It’s all data. Everything is replete with cultural meaning.

Crucial: At first take in and note as much as possible, even if it seems unimportant.

You might not appreciate the cultural meaning or importance until later realizations.

123

Ethnographic Techniques

• Observation – Of actions, things, words

– Consider context – small and large

– Record, by hand, by camera, by audio or video recorder

• Why observe? – To derive cultural meaning

• Because culture is ‘practiced,’ culture lives in people’s actions, in artifacts, in language, in what’s done or not.

• Some cultural meaning is so tacit and assumed as to be explicitly realized and verbalized only with great difficulty.

• Some habits have been so practiced that the do-er no longer realizes what they do (or what they had to learn/know to do it).

– E.g., pulling a specific brand off of a shelf while barely looking

– “An expert is someone who has forgotten the rules…” (Harvey & Evans 2001)

124

Ethnographic Techniques

• Observation video example: what is ‘picking up

some beer?’

125

Ethnographic Techniques

• But observed human behavior must always be coupled

with cognitive meaning, otherwise what is it?

– There is, first, the routine prescribed by custom and tradition, then

there is the manner in which it is carried out, and lastly there is the

commentary to it, contained in the natives’ mind. A man who

submits to various customary obligations, who follows a

traditional course of action, does it impelled by certain motives, to

the accompaniment of certain feelings, guided by certain ideas. -

– Malinowski, 1922

126

Ethnographic Techniques

• For beer, one needs to know: – “What’s on my mind when beer shopping?”

– Who and what is the beer for? What are the

circumstances surrounding the purchase? Etc. Etc.

Beer shopping study included recruited respondents who made collages of their beer buying mindsets.

Study also included in-home interviews, shadowing in-depth respondents in stores as they shopped for beer,

and analytic debriefs of the experience. Videotaped beer purchasers approached post-purchase and queried.

127

Ethnographic Techniques

• Ethnographic Interviewing

– Enactments can be of help

– Talk-alouds can be a blessing

Video Examples:

The whys and hows of hiding a smoking habit …

The pleasures and problems of a pickup …

128

Ethnographic Techniques

• Video, audio, and photo diaries can mean: – Data is produced, though you are not there

– Understanding different environments, different times

– An alternative method of screening respondents • Choosing research respondents based on submitted materials

–

• Choice of recording method depends on question asked – E.g., Video diaries for movie choosing decisions and viewing

‘behavior’ proved useless, audio would have been better. People didn’t narrate what’s was in their heads and didn’t ‘do’ much of anything.

– Choose between audio, video, and still photos carefully! • (Combining audio and photo often works well)

129

Choosing Ethnographic Diaries

What mainly count are

individual, internal thoughts,

feelings, decisions.

Personal, internal thoughts

can be expressed.

Action and behavior are

what count.

Multi-person action and

interaction can come alive.

Illustrations of meaningful

objects/places/people are

needed, e.g., to symbolize a

brand, a feeling, a value, etc.

To help people pre-think for

ethnographic session.

Environments where video

is not suitable, e.g., stores,

workplaces, lying in bed

with a catalogue.

People have willing friends

and family to be in the video

and to record the video. The

dual camera perspective

“from my eyes” and “in the

eyes of others” helps.

Can be used to accompany

audio diaries and/or as

stimulus in interview.

Encourage out of household

and category pictures.

In-depth, in-vivo thought

process.

Can be included in report as

printed quotation or audio.

Vivid illustrations of lived

worlds and behavior.

Brings respondents to life

for clients.

A set of materials of relevant

symbols and icons. A sense

of the life world beyond the

interview setting.

Helps to illustrate a written

report.

Because

When

or

Where

Provides

Audio Video Photo

130

Audio and Video Diaries

• Ethnographic directions are crucial. Request:

– Details, remind that no detail is too small

• Date, time, circumstances, mood, thoughts, others, outcomes

– For them to go with the flow, show you the real

• Live life as usual, just document it

– Make some things explicit

• Talk aloud, wrap up at the end, e.g., analyze/comment on what

was recorded/happened during the recording period.

– Participation: Be creative and have fun!

131

Audio Diaries

• For example: Time and Banking … – Karen, 36, small business owner:

• “So there were 11 people in line ahead of me, four tellers on duty, one was a trainee. But it took me maybe 13 minutes to get in and out of the bank, not too bad. … I had the same teller 2 or 3 weeks ago. He’s definitely improved from the last time I was in there. He was a little bit frustrated, and double checking all the cash, and he was a little bit – he was being watched over by a manager of some kind. He seemed quite a bit more nervous the last time. This time he was really pleasant. It was enjoyable. And, usually, I spend a lot of time just enjoying watching the other people in line. …. Generally, going to the bank is a nice break from work. In this case, it’s been really hot and there’s no air conditioning at work, so going to the bank is, oh, it sort of revived me just being in an air conditioned vehicle and the bank, so that puts me in a good mood. It certainly wakes me up … Today, there was an adult woman the whole time in line sucking her thumb, so it was really something to be amused by. And a couple, two windows down from me, were closing their account … “

132

Photo Diaries

133

Video Diaries

• Video example:

– Young, urban, beer drinking men …

134

Ethnographic Techniques

• Ethnographic Interviewing

– General guidelines rather than a prescribed protocol

• Ethnographic interviewing, whether for 2+ hours or 2 minutes

is a case of participation.

• Like a conversation or a discussion that happens over dinner,

hours of discussion can ensue from ‘tell me about” or “what

happened?”

– One topic leads to the next; ethnographer is the attentive,

probing listener, usually for 2+ hours

– Let the person/events define what’s important

• Thereby showing the cultural categories and meanings

• Probe, follow-up, on events, issues (and what’s absent)

135

Ethnographic Techniques

• Ethnographic Interviewing

– Does not have to be one-on-one

• Naturally occurring social groupings (families, friends) often

provide the best forum for ethnographic interviews.

• People will talk with each other, probe each other, keep each

other ‘honest.’

– Rapport is key

• Don’t go too fast. Small talk, talking about other things,

playing with kids is not necessarily wasting time, but rather

what opens up important stories and the ‘backstage’ as well as

instantiates cultural meanings.

136

Ethnographic Techniques

• Ethnographic Interviewing

– Elicit real stories

• Often start with generalities, but get to the real stories

– What happened yesterday, this morning, the last time, etc.?

– Cultural meaning is about lived experience

– Real stories

• May show the discrepancies – how the daily (cultural) real can

be different from the (cultural) ideal

• Frequently elicit details not otherwise thought of

• Serve as potent, memorable presentation examples

“A real case indeed will start the natives on a wave of discussion, evoke expressions of indignation,

show them taking sides – all of which talk will probably contain a wealth of definite views, of moral

censures, as well as reveal the social mechanism set in motion … ” - Malinowski, 1922

137

Ethnographic Techniques: In Sum

• Always remember: data are produced, not

gathered.

– Method of recording creates the data.

– Analysis creates the findings.

138

Ethnographic (Cultural) Analysis

• Cultural analysis is key

– Happens while in ‘the field’

– During field breaks (e.g., late at night)

– After the fieldwork is completed

“Good training in theory, and acquaintance with its latest results, is not identical

with being burdened with ‘preconceived ideas.’ If a man sets out on an expedition,

determined to prove certain hypotheses, if he is incapable of changing his views

constantly and casting them off ungrudgingly under the pressure of evidence,

needless to say his work will be worthless. But the more problems he brings with

him, the more he is in the habit of moulding his theories according to facts, and of

seeing facts in their bearing upon theory, the better his is equipped for the work.”

-- Malinowski, 1922.

139

Cultural Analysis

- The analytic search for cultural meaning is iterative

- One participant observation experience does influence the next

- During analysis itself

- “From my own experience, I can say that, very often, a problem seemed settled, everything fixed and clear, till I began to write down a short preliminary sketch of my results. And only then, did I see the enormous deficiencies, which would show me where lay new problems, and lead

me on to new work.” -- Malinowski, 1922

• Final analysis can take longer than fieldwork, give yourself time.

• Diamonds are worth less in the rough. Just description doesn’t do.

– Gems shine once cultivated ….

140

Cultural Analysis

• How to?

– Go back to the questions as if from another planet

• What is going on here? What is this? What does this do?

– Peer into anything that seems to be different or fuzzy or

seemingly contradictory for clues on meaning

• Border zones, sites of cultural clash, cultural difference are

often great places to illuminate cultural meanings …

– For example…

141

Breakout Session

• A (multi)cultural analysis of coffee

– What is coffee?

– Partner interviews using photo ‘props’ …

• Tell me about coffee in your life…

– Look at props, get comparisons, get history, get story, get

context …

– Individual analyses

– Analyses as a group

142

Wrap Up: Utilizing Ethnography

• Ethnography should really be used when ...

– The issue is one of discovery …what is ‘x’?

– A goal is to understand the lived-worlds of consumers

– There is time for fieldwork and analysis

• The lived worlds are brought to clients

– Via video, audio and photos and in-situ accompaniment

• Cultural understandings are the key for:

– New products, advertising, merchandising, marketing …

143

In The End

• There were

the ads…

144

In the End

• There was the

retail

environment…

145

In the End

• …And the search for coffee in Bangkok

146

In the End

147

In the End

• And the ethnographic

method

148

In the End

149

Thank You