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Online Ethnography
Online Ethnography
Ethnographic research continues to be a valuable approach in helping
marketers gain a deeper understanding of consumer behavior—their
perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs that drive their decisions. Observing
people in their natural setting provides a detailed level of information for
interpretation and, ultimately (in the marketing world), an insight or idea
that can help a business in a number of strategic ways. However, for all the
valuable contributions ethnographic research has and will continue to provide
marketers, there are a few drawbacks in conducting field-oriented ethnography
that have led to exploring and developing other approaches to observational
data collection.
The drawbacks in conducting field-oriented ethnography include the following:
the cost to recruit, coordinate, travel, and conduct can be significant; the
time needed to conduct a field study is often prohibitive for a marketer’s
changing needs; and a significant level of “intrusion” still exists
as the “natural setting” to observe people includes an ethnographer
conducting an interview and a camera operator filming inside someone’s
home.
These drawbacks—combined with the proliferation and ease-of-use
of digital cameras, as well as a large and continually growing population of
diverse consumers online (Decision Analyst has over six million members in the
online American Consumer Opinion® panel) have led to the development of
another approach for conducting ethnography online.
This online ethnography approach was developed using a
Time-Extended™ online qualitative technique from Decision Analyst. This
practical and nonintrusive methodology for conducting ethnographic marketing
research provides advantages in some important ways, such as the following:
- The respondents' normal routines are not disrupted since they provide their
responses at their convenience.
- Digital photos taken by participants, coupled with online diary entries,
are used to provide the cues for qualitative depth interviews and group discussions.
- The ability to study consumers’ daily shopping/usage routines over
longer periods of time (and closer to their real-life shopping/usage cycle)
than what is practical in the field.
- The online environment allows for a high level of self-disclosure in freely
expressing the respondents' feelings in this “me and my computer”
time.
- Consumers have an opportunity to reflect on and give detailed descriptions
of their routines, thoughts, feelings, and experiences that they believe are
most relevant to explaining their usage and purchasing decisions.
Elements of an online ethnography study typically include:
Online ethnography studies usually last over a set period of days
(three to 10) but can be extended to last several weeks. Each participant
typically spends a total of two to three hours per week providing detailed
answers and commenting on responses of other participants. In addition, the
online panel allows us to recruit special subsets of participants that have
been identified as particularly interesting via an online quantitative survey
(e.g., concept acceptors, “fence-sitters,” etc.). This allows a
deep-insight, qualitative drill-down on the small samples of consumers
representing key segments of the total target audience.
Conducting online ethnography using Decision Analyst’s Time-Extended™
approach generates a level of depth and detail not commonly seen in qualitative
marketing research, and often a level of detail not seen even in traditional
ethnographic research. And this depth translates into the silver bullet for
marketers—insights into what respondents actually do and how that behavior
drives their decisions.
Experienced Qualitative Consultants
Decision Analyst has over 30 years of qualitative research experience and is
one of the pioneers in adapting qualitative research to the Internet. Our moderators
can recommend the qualitative technique (online or in-person) best suited to
your research needs.
For more information on our Qualitative Research services, please contact Gwen
Ishmael by emailing gishmae@decisionanalyst.com
or calling 1-800-ANALYSIS (262-5974) or 1-817-640-6166.
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