The End

I had the most fun with this project at the beginning and I believe it is because I really began to understand how to hypothesize or describe the nittty-gritty details of a segments behavioral and psychographic profile, at least within the brainstorming/extreme stereotyping phase. Describing someone’s potential behaviors and ways of thinking before you have even met them is a skill you cultivate through listening, observing, noting, and simply thinking logically about the experiences you have already had with this segment. All of these attributes culminated in a more informed and educated stereotypical representation of the segment when beginning this project. For example, when we (group 7) began our project, we were each forced to think critically about our past experiences with affluent empty nesters (i.e. some of our parents in this case). Though we might have been subconsciously aware of our segments behaviors, attitudes, and psychographic tendencies, the project really made us analyze all these past experiences and hypothesize about potential trends in behavior and thinking.

I also feel like I better understand what actually goes into a prototype and that prototyping is a process. Especially the fact that you brought in a professional industrial designer to discuss what goes into a prototyping and how it evolves ( I really enjoyed that lecture). The idea of good prototyping is that your first prototype is not going to be perfect or the “winner”, but that is simply suppose to convey the form and possibly the basic function of the device and then over time, you incorporate scale, weight, and more accurate materials that will resemble the final product. For example, my groups prototype evolution process went as follows: when we were initially concepting our “Magic Mirror” prototype it consisted of drawings and a few similar visual representations online. From there we began to experiment with materials, which was a difficult part of our prototype given it was mirror glass. We wanted to be able to mold our materials so, we finally decided on mirrored paper, wax paper, and paper screen shots to convey our basic product idea. Finally, we wanted to give the illusion of glass and appropriate weight so, we incorporated a piece of glass at the back of the prototype to weight our prototype and add to the illusion that the entire prototype was made of glass. This entire long process helped me to take what the Industrial Design speaker has said about prototyping and see it actually occur.

This project was a bit of an emotional roller coaster for me. I started with extremely high hopes for the project and my group (possibly to my detriment) and well, things didn’t end up exactly how I imagined. Firstly, I love the premise of the class and the related project, however the loose nature of the project (i.e. groups really had a lot of leeway with certain areas) made for some rough times with my group. We were smaller (3 people as opposed to 5-6). I think this alone got us started on the wrong foot because we were already feeling at a disadvantage from the beginning and were never able to rally against this. The group also had an odd dynamic because of the differing personalities and work ethics. Though it was good learning for a real world situation, I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a huge hindrance to getting work done. In regards to you, Prof. Walls, I had a generally good experience though I did feel as if our group received less direct guidance along the way. Honestly, that is in part our fault because we just as easily asked for it, but is nonetheless an emotional reaction I experienced during this project. The process of the project was a good experience. I felt like it had a very logically course of action and helped us to narrow down and better define our insights as we went through the project guidelines. No notable emotional reactions on that account. As for my enjoyment of the project, working with my group mostly did not add much. I say this hesitantly because I did like the people in my group; however, I don’t think they enjoyed the project much and it was noticeable in their actions toward group meetings etc. It seemed like no one wanted to be there, which makes me wonder why they joined the class in the first place but alas. Overall, it was a huge task just to keep certain group members on topic with what we were working on. Working with my team probably added more learning on group dynamics and team management than in customer insights. Customer insights learning and enjoyment was done more on my own our during lecture, which I greatly enjoyed.

A Whole New World

Thanks Prof. Walls. Love this blog option!

I choose to comment on Seth Godin’s blog post entitled “Sixty to Zero”. In this post, Seth gives a great metaphor for what marketers and most, if not all, industries are going through in today’s world (i.e. major shifts in the way things are marketed). He compares vehicle specs focusing on “acceleration, [and never] braking” to marketers and industry leaders focusing on revving up and not slowing down in order to switch gears into other directions. These other directions or more fittingly, wake-up calls, are Seth’s way of jarring us all into seeing that major shifts are already coming. Are you ready? Are we ready?

Seth goes on to make a series of obvious and not so obvious (at least to me) predictions that are already occurring in today’s market. One, the U.S. newsprint industry will be dead by 2012. How will that affect you and your business? Two, “90% of sales will come from WOM or digital promotion by 2011”, how do you prepare for that? Three, the “effort to outsource data manipulation will decrease until it’s cheaper and faster than using in-house talent”, what are you doing to stay on top of that trend?

Each of these predictions is filled with demise and destruction of industries or business practices, which have been the norm for so long. In Seth’s perspective, it is like he is slapping us all in the face in order to get us moving into another direction. And he is. My favorite line in his post is when he says that “it seems to me that if you know the old world is about to end, you’d run like crazy to master the new one.” However, this line is so obscure and full of urgency that it’s almost frightening. What is the new world like? What should I master? These just so happen to be questions I’ve been toying with myself.

I don’t have many negative critiques on Seth’s post mostly due to the fact that I agree with it all. I think that is why I choose it, because it spoke to me the most. However, it would be nice if he had expanded on more changes he foresees coming down the pipeline, and most importantly, how he views this new world we are all entering. Hey Seth, got any words of wisdom for new graduates???

Honestly though these changes going on can be scary, they can also be full of opportunities for new inventions. I agree with Seth that the old models are dying but I also am a bit lost when I think of how to conquer the new models. It seems as if the old model infrastructure is still around and the new model is full of true leaders as well as pretenders feeding off the temporary chaos of change and trying to make a quick buck. Seth never mentions this, but I hope he would agree with me. If I could ask Seth to expand on this post (which I might), I would ask him how do you decipher the good leaders of the new world from the pretend leaders? Or, do you simply put faith in yourself and lead with an invention of your own?

In one of the hyperlinks within Seth’s post, it directs you to a New York Times article in the Opinions section. The articles is a NY Times journalist speaking with Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, about the current demise of the traditional newspaper industry. In the interview, Mr. Schmidt said something that correlated well with Seth’s post. He says: ““The best way to get out of this [industry meltdown] is to invent a new product. That’s the way Google thinks. Incumbents very seldom invent the future.”

Paper Outline

Below is the outline for my paper on virtual ethnography. When reading thru the outline, can you check to make sure:
1) I stay on topic throughout (there is a lot of information and I didn’t want to get off topic too much)
2) Also, can you help me with areas where I can really let my voice come through? There were so many interesting articles about this topic and its applications that I feel like I am having trouble really analyzing it myself and not just citing the entire time. This might be a strange request, but I wanted to avoid simply writing a paper simply on research I collected. I would rather it have areas where I can add something interesting, but its proving a little difficult to do this.

I. Introduction
Ethnography, the “art and science of describing a group or culture” (Fetterman) and consumer research have always been complimentary forms of research. With the dawn of the technology age, ethnographers move to the virtual world has changed the pervasiveness of this fieldwork to reach even further into our daily lives, allowing them to extract insights that are even more accurate.

Virtual ethnography, then, suggests a method in which one actively engages with people in online spaces in order to write the story of their situated context, informed by social interaction (Crichton). The type of interaction we suggest involves a researcher and participant engaging in conversation and meaning making through repeated, revisited and jointly interpreted conversations that support reflection and revision.

Now, consumers are continually “turning to computer-mediated communication for information” on products purchasing decisions. The number of online formats which consumers can discuss their latest purchase, offer recommendations, or provide product feedback is escalating. In marketing, we are taught to go where the people are, listen to them, and use that information to create something new. Never before, have we been able to follow, listen to, and more adequately create new products. The internet has made this possible and now, it is a hotbed for detailed cross-consumer communication; cross-communication that can lead to incredible insights into your consumer’s real life.

a. Thesis - To view this research practice more accurately, I will outline the constraints and advantages of virtual ethnography for consumer research as well as uncovered points of interest and my personal insights into this field.

i. Weaknesses
ii. Strengths
iii. Uncovered points of interest
iv. My insights/ Evidence of Virtual Ethnography’s Advantages

II. Body

A. Weaknesses
- providing correct guidelines to address the nature of online environments
- technological malfunctions & limitations - non-receipt of messages, disjointed contributions, and the temporary nature of individual participation and online groups.
- missing cues due to nature of communication (written) - lists sensory cues that are present in face-to-face and not online, such as speed, loudness and pitch, appearance and facial expressions
- regionally skewed – bias of people with internet access; gender bias in other countries where majority using Internet are men
- when the field you are researching is NOT virtual

B. Strengths
- faster, simpler, and less expensive than traditional methods
- more naturalistic (explain more), unobtrusive than other forms like focus groups and interviews {Robert Kozinets}
- identifying “emerging social forms” online (Crichton)
- easy to communicate across other time-zones and geographic barriers – gain better perspective of who all actually is a part of this “certain” group not just who is available to you where you are or where your budget can get you
- documentation of all communication
- honesty of communication, active participation and engagement, critical review of what ethnography submits before it is done
- interviews are automatically transcribed, reducing cost of this for the researcher
- This allowed the researcher to function as a participant observer, participating " overtly or covertly, in people's daily lives for an extended period of time, watching what happens, listening to what is said, asking questions; in fact collecting whatever data are available to throw light on the issues with which he or she is concerned" (Crichton)
- dialogue is open-textured. This means that the conversation evolves; it is not pre-determined, controlled or structured.

C. Uncovered Points of Interest – What can Virtual Ethnography offer that traditional ethnography cannot?
- What drives online consumer advocacy of a product? Or, how do people acquire online followers creating increased “buzz” for or against a product or company?
* Can actually follow the word of mouth process and see points where product evangelists emerge and begin creating a movement for or against your product
- What are the tastes, desires, relevant symbol systems, and decision-making influences of particular consumers and consumer groups online?
* Marketers can obtain more in-depth knowledge and awareness of their customers actual tastes, desires, and views as well as their language and lifestyle played out online
- Does using virtual ethnography as a tool for doing customer research on a non-virtual field create unseen biases or problems with the accuracy of the research?
- What are the human factors that come into play when one functions online? (Crichton, 1993)
* Negotiating one's sense of self online aka finding and developing a textual voice
* Dealing with technical problems
* Developing a sense of online community
* Determining specific social conditions within the online community
* Dealing with the use/absence of senses

D. i) My Insights
- Virtual ethnography’s role as a new wave of qualitative research
- What are the ethical boundaries within virtual ethnography? (Kellehear, 1993)
* i.e. is “lurking” on a online community ethical when participates are not aware of the researcher’s identity or role and their access to online conversations
- obtaining accurate descriptions of emotion or eliciting emotion at all with online research participants? could this be solved with video conferencing like Skype?
ii) Evidence of Virtual Ethnography’s Advantages
- “The participants used physical objects (their computers and software) to create and share social and abstract objects, sharing what they were eating or drinking, what time it was or how they were feeling. Initial fears of not getting to know the participants were proven to be unfounded as interactions increased and the level of personal comments deepened. It appears that the participants who contributed to this branch worked together to define the environment in which they found themselves.” (Crichton, 1993)

III. Conclusion

- Virtual ethnography can offer new insights into consumer’s lives that marketers have never before been able to obtain
- Virtual ethnographers will need to uphold certain levels of ethical boundaries for their online research.
- With the addition of video, virtual ethnography could possibly bridge the lack of emotional and non-verbal cues from their research participants; However, as with current face-to-face interview, people might be unwilling to participate in research of this kind.
- Do the strengths of virtual ethnography out-weight the weaknesses in regards to companies wanting more accurate consumer research? Yet to be seen; however, there are unique offerings of virtual ethnography that were not offered with traditional ethnography. Also, the online research format is very attractive for obtaining information about the purchasing process, direct consumer feedback on likes/dislikes, and general consumer interests and thought processes.

Oh Rapaille!

Dr. Clotaire Rapaille methods seem to start from the idea that consumers cannot voice their desires accurately so, you have to delve into their subconscious thought to discover what they really want.

His 3-stage technique starts with 1) asking people what they think of immediately after showing them a certain product. He described this in the video as letting the person voice their own subconscious thoughts in relation to the product without his involvement so much.

Then in stage 2, Dr. Rapaille uncovers the consumer’s emotions by asking them to describe the product to him as if he were a 5 year old from another planet that had never experienced Earth before. The participants seemed a little confused at this point, which was entertaining.

Finally, in stage 3, Dr. Rapaille then puts the participant in a room with pens and paper on the floor and then turns off the light (creepy). This is suppose to make them feel like they are in a dreamlike state and very relaxed and open. The participant is then suppose to go back to their first experience with the product and write or draw their associated feelings.

This exercise is suppose to expose the “secret” that marketers can use to sell their products more effectively. Dr. Rapaille refers to the reptilian hot button as the source of the unspoken needs of consumers. Dr. Rapaille then goes through and analyzes his findings to report back to marketers for product design, advertising, and overall brand image.

For example, Dr. Rapaille’s finding for SUV’s was the word “domination” which evoked images of strength and power. He then told the SUV makers to make the car appear stronger looking and more powerful, with tinted windows and a more masculine feel.

Seeing the Song Airlines experience strategy was disappointing and at least from my female point-of-view, a really bad idea. When they were initially segmenting and targeting their market, it still had the potential of being a good idea. Creating a fictional woman that gave their target female market was good, but I don’t know why you would ever want to target one gender group for an airlines. That is just not how people fly. I think they were basing their target market on too narrow and demographic based variables instead of focusing on who that woman was and if any men are similar to her in attitudes and beliefs.

Also, the “We’re So Song” catchphrase was extremely annoying and related a very bad connotation to their brand, at least in my mind. There also seemed to be some confusion about what their purpose was in the market and what exactly was their point of difference. For example, with the mall Song store, a male customer seemed very confused on whether they were a travel agency or an airlines and frankly, I would be too. Overall, the brand purpose needed to be more cohesive and the target not so gender specific.

The Persuaders was a very interesting little film and definitely presenting some challenges and tidbits of knowledge for the marketing and advertising world. I admit, I’m a little ashamed that I could potentially be adding to the clutter I loathe so much; however, I guess I should look at it as a personal challenge to find interesting ways to move beyond the clutter and offer something with actual substance.

Virtual Ethnography

Ethnography and its applications to marketing and marketing research has been a huge interest of mine since I first found out its meaning. The origin of the word “ethnography” comes from ethnos meaning “people” and graphein meaning “writing”.

My first exposure to ethnography and a great example of it in action is an ethnographic approach to studying the Burning Man Festival. The festival is described as “an experiment in community, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance and takes its name from the ritual of burning a large wooden sculpture of a man on the sixth day” of the festival. Here, an ethnographic researcher would study the festival group through direct contact with the culture; however, the researcher would further describe the festival participants by writing about them while living amongst them.

However, in regards to my paper, I am still not sure if I want to take a broad look at ethnography or a focus on ethnography applied to a more specific area. I am interested in delving into every aspect of ethnography and how each kind applies to learning insights about niche markets or particular groups of people. For example, the different kinds of ethnography I would look at are in broad research or more specific research are: 1) critical ethnography 2) realist ethnography or 3) virtual ethnography.

Critical ethnography addresses the “false consciousness” that can be produced by cultural institutions. I believe marketers, being familiar with these false consciousness thoughts, could better target a given segment in a way that would promote action against these false ideas.

In realist ethnography, the focus is more on the exact writing style. Realist ethnography’s purpose is to put the reader in the story and make them feel as if they are experiencing what the author did in fact experience. This practice is so valuable to marketers and advertisers alike. As a marketer, you gain expertise in directly relating a product or service to the customer by making them feel as if they are experiencing it first hand.

In virtual ethnography aka online ethnography or amusingly also known as netnography is a form of online community research. You might say some companies already do this, but by applying past and current ethnographic research methodologies, current companies might look at online research in a new way.

So, as you can see each of these specific areas are really interesting to me. Right now, I’m not sure if I want to cover all of them broadly or really dig into just one form ethnography. Virtual ethnography however, really interests me (didn’t know it existed), and I would like to explore it more through my paper.

Here is an article which discusses the emergence of virtual ethnography more: http://fmx.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/12/1/3. It discusses some of the questions that come up from doing online fieldwork resarch and ways in which the ethnographers deal with theses issues.

Companies Are People Too

So, I’ve been toying with the current problems the music industry is facing since we initially spoke about this topic in class (i.e. them suing their best customers and using an outdated business model). I am also being daily reminded by everyone to “brand” myself so, that I’m more marketable and eventually someone is won over enough to hire me.

How are these two dilemmas related? Well, companies have been branding themselves forever, but the disconnect happens when people see the company as some workplace that no human could ever inhabit…surely robots are running the place is what I always assume.

Let me start by explaining how I see this current trend of personal branding. It is not simply giving someone a business card with your information on it anymore. It has evolved into a way of life, which is echoed in everything you do from how informally yet trendy you speak and dress to what sites you frequent and how many followers you acquire through this process. This evolution has been powerful.

How could music companies like Sony BMG use this to relate to their customers more after all the drama? Well, first they could start acting and speaking like actual people and not like companies or drones. Going back to this simple principle will slowly win people over, and eventually people will forget that they once saw the Majors as evil empires. The big players in the music industry need to walk and talk like real people, and not just any people – like people that LOVE music. Customers interacting with the companies and realizing that the people at the company are not much different from them. Customers are blogging, discussing news on forums, social media networking, etc. After visiting Sony BMG’s site, I wasn’t too surprised that they offered no interaction other than a simple “contact us” page and the only personnel bios were for two older executives that I didn’t feel related to in any way. From what I can see they are trying to relate to the Gen Y’ers through Apple’s iTunes, but I don’t think giving us $0.99 songs will do it. Then again, it just might be a bitter taste left over.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not bad-mouthing some pretty respectable companies, just providing some well-deserved criticism. My plan of action for all the major music labels are to stop putting up a façade. Embrace the bad press and make drastic changes to remedy the situation. Here’s some helpful advice on embracing bad press.

Well, hopefully the music industry can learn from all of this and make the grand gesture to all of us music enthusiasts…whatever that may be. Until then, I’ll continue ripping my music via torrents.

Paralysis!

To me it seems like customers have, especially within the last few decades, come to expect the greatest possible version(s) of the products out there. As Barry Schwartz has pointed out in his discussion on the paradox of choice, this overload of choices causes paralysis and actually hurts the consumer by giving them an unnecessary amount of choices. A task that once took a few minutes to complete, may now take many hours of agony in order to make the best choice.

After watching Barry speak, I began to think about when consumers do and do not have endless amounts of choices. When I want the utmost in purchasing choices, I might go to Central Market or Whole Foods, where I begin seeing items I never even knew I could choose. I personally get so overwhelmed, even picking a laundry detergent is a difficult task. But say when I’m in a lower end grocery store, I might be left with fewer options, making the shopping experience look less appealing in my eyes.

We consumers want to make the best possible choice for us. Feeling we are different from every other joe-shmo, we want numerous options in our products so, that we can express those differences. To stick with the grocery shopping story – when you go to the store, what you buy or more what people see you buy can say a lot about you. People might not admit this but haven’t you ever looked at what the person in front of you is buying. This makes you wonder about them and what their lifestyle might be, right?

Every trip to the store is almost like a word association game. Flax seed granola = hipster; Cheap beer = college student, preferably male; and the stereotypes go on and on. But getting past the stereotypes, there is some truth to the correlation between the number of choices we as consumers are given, and in the end, how what we choose says something about us. It says something about us to the rest of the world.

So, even though sifting through all these choices can take minutes or hours away from your life, we consumers wouldn’t have it any other way. Because without these choices we couldn’t as adequately say what we want to say about ourselves. That we are unique.

To give you an example of when this happened to me most recently: I needed to purchase a small side item to bring to a dinner party. I wanted options. I wanted to bring the best side item I could and increasing the items meant more time but also more probability of success. In this case, Barry was right. I encountered the paradox of choice and walked through the entire grocery store what had to be 3 times. I was completely overwhelmed with all the possibilities. But in the end, I was successful. With all these choices, I asked for the expertise of the store attendant and made the best choice for me.

Everyone loved the candied jalapeño dip and grape, walnut salad. Success!

talkin' bout my generation

I feel marketers have mostly always been successful at appealing to the majority, and I would say that again, the majority of my generation is no different. We tend to dress similarly in brands such as American Apparel and share many of these very accurate stereotypes from the Generation Y article. Why are we such a collective generation in dress, attitude, and thought? Well, we were born from parents that raised us to be opinionated, passionate, and different. Growing up, everything we said and did was genius and our parents cultivated our obscure interests in a way seemingly different than past generations of parent and child.

So, marketers are doing a good job addressing the needs of Gen Y, but could it be better? I think yes. Marketers are moving fast in following our every interest, but I think we move a little faster, and we won’t exploit all of our daily fads to some guy in a suit wanting us to take a quick survey. Marketers need to come to us as an equal or at least a little more casual and in an environment we feel comfortable in. They need to loosen up and have fun, be quirky and sarcastic and interesting. We need to learn something new and possibly absurd while laughing at the same time. These are attributes we Gen Y’ers can appreciate and over time, begin to purchase from.

Some examples of people/products that do this combination of funny yet casual are: Stephen Colbert and Flight of the Conchords.

One more important thing I believe marketers should know about Gen Y is that even though we are connected in many ways there is one significant line that divides us. Celebrities and/or celebrity gossip. This is one very profitable area of my generation that I do not get at all. Maybe this makes me less of a member of my own generation; however, I’ve observed the celebrity obsessed and the non-celebrity obsessed member of Gen Y (no discrimination by the way) and though, we coexist and laugh at one another, we find very different values and meaning in our respective brands.

So do I, myself, feel that I am a typical and valid member of my generation? Yes and no.

Yes, I listen to many of the same uber-popular bands that every other kid my age is obsessed with. Yes, I dress myself with comfortable yet unique clothes that express the individual inside. Yes, my parents awe at the opinionated child they raised and wonder when I’ll stop educating them on saving the environment. Yes, I feel ill if I don’t get online or check Facebook a few times a week. Yes, I question everything and half to have solid proof before I’ll completely believe it, and yes, the internet forever changed my life.

However on the other hand, I’m not so much like my generation in that, I drink tea like an English old maid and love to throw dinner parties. I watch all the old movies on TCM and can have more interesting conversations with my grandmother than many of my peers. I believe many of my generation don’t quite “get it” and it’s nearly impossible to find any who do. Sometimes I’m even still figuring out what “it” is exactly. So, even though these items might be obscure for a marketer to use, I believe no one would guess that inside a young 22 year old girl lies remnants of her grandmother, remnants of the the 40’s and 50’s.

These are conversations marketers need to have with members of my generation. Try to discover the remnants within each of us and figure out that it could be similar to the remnants inside each of them.