Signs and Symbols in Qualitative Analysis [Presented to RI in 2002 by PRACTICA LLC]
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Transcript of Signs and Symbols in Qualitative Analysis [Presented to RI in 2002 by PRACTICA LLC]
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
2
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….
3
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
4
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)
5
Semiotics
The Theory
6
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
7
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…
8
What is Semiotics?
• What are the signs
here?
9
What is Semiotics?
• Or here?
10
What is Semiotics?
• Or here?
11
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
12
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
13
What is Semiotics?
– What are the representamens, interpretants, objects in
this ad?
14
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
15
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
16
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…
17
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)
18
The role of culture
• Cartoons
19
The role of culture
• Cartoons
20
The role of culture
• And more cartoons…
21
The role of culture
• Cartoons
– New Yorker cartoons that violated crucial conventions
22
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
23
The role of culture
• Conventions of art/of representation vs.
conventions of style
24
The role of culture
• What metaphors are
being invoked and
violated here?
25
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
26
The role of culture
– E.g., the specter of disease a century apart: what is different?
27
The role of culture
– Nature vs. culture
28
Semiotic Analysis
• Semiotic analysis makes the unconscious explicit
– Decodes communicative events
• Advertising
• Conversation
• Architecture
– Identifies both signifier and signified
29
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.
30
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
31
Semiotic Analysis
– So too in advertisements where visual alternatives are
paradigmatic alternatives
32
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
33
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
34
Semiotics
The Practice
35
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)
36
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
37
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)
38
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
39
Analytic Frameworks
• Any number of frameworks have been invoked
methodologically as semiotic analysis
– Citing various linguistic, philosophical, folkloric
traditions
40
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”
41
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
42
Analytic Frameworks
• Layers of signification
• From the micro to the macro: iterative and back
and forth
connotations
values/codes/myths
ideologies
Signified
denoted signifier
43
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?
44
Advertising
• Implications for…
– Positioning brand
– Pitching new business
– Taking a brand into new market
– Evaluating competitors in global marketplace
– Speaking to a particular audience
45
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
46
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
47
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
48
Advertising
• Who is the viewer?
• What is the modality?
49
Advertising
• And who is the viewer here?
• Modality?
50
Advertising
• What are the signifiers here?
Wired Magazine, September, 1995
51
Advertising
• Modality?
• Viewer?
• Expressive elements
52
Advertising
– Elements,
modality,
viewer?
53
Advertising
• Elements, modality, viewer?
54
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
55
Advertising
• Pass 3: Building brand by brand to cover a
category or audience
Category or Audience Analysis
Recurrent codes
Recurrent cultural constructions
Overarching metaphors…
56
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?
57
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
58
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
59
Pitching Delta
60
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
61
Pitching Delta
62
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
63
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
64
Pitching Delta
65
Pitching Delta
66
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
67
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
68
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
69
Computer Ads
• 1980s, US
– (video)
70
Computer Ads
• 2002
– Macintosh: What has
changed?
71
Breakout Session
• Coffee advertisements
72
Coffee Advertisements (US)
73
Coffee Advertisements (US)
74
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
75
Retail Environments
• Implications for…
– POP merchandizing
– Design of retail
– Services
76
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)
77
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?
78
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
79
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?
81
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.”
84
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.
85
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.
86
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
94
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)
104
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
107
Ethnographic Goals
The Insider
Point
of View
Cultural
Meaning
Anthropological
Goal for
Ethnography
Understanding
the Consumer
108
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
109
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.
113
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?
114
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.
115
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