Forget the sharks - swim with your own fish!

Editor’s note: Gerry Cain is president of T.I.P Research, Inc., Kansas City, Mo.

In an increasingly turbulent business environment, corporate ethnographic research may just be the tool today’s companies need to develop the competitive edge necessary for survival. Marketing organizations of all types are being forced by circumstances (internal and external) to reassess their role as corporate neighbors, evaluate the true value of their employees, and examine the effectiveness of installed marketing processes. Ultimately these reassessments impact the organization’s products and services and, of course, its brand.

Previously such internal assessment has been achieved to some degree with the use of qualitative research tools. But focus groups among the organization’s employees or internal clients don’t quite seem to provide the depth of insight necessary to really break out of a competitive struggle for increasingly discerning consumers, where differentiation among brands is imperative. Here, I see the need for an “emic perspective” or, an ethnographic methodology that examines the corporate community itself along with its worldview.

To use an analogy, qualitative research is akin to taking some fish out of a pond, dropping them in a fish tank and making assumptions about their behavior based upon a dialogue with them. In ethnographic research, one leaves the fish in the pond, dons a pair of goggles and fins, and jumps into the pond to swim along with the fish. Competitive insight is achieved based upon observation of the fish while allowing them to behave in their own natural environment.

You no doubt have heard the anecdotes of how ethnographic research has been used externally, or among the company’s customers and prospects, ethnographically known as the etic perspective:

  • how Intuit followed its customers home and, based upon observation of use, subsequently improved its Quicken software product;
  • how the beef industry council in observation of women in grocery stores and their preparation habits at home, determined it was necessary to educate consumers who knew very little about the variety of meat available at their grocery counter; and
  • how the Bissell, Inc. vacuum company enlisted the assistance of local PTA mothers to develop a persuasive marketing campaign in the launch of its new Steam N’ Clean model.

This outside-in perspective has been fruitful for many organizations and most of us are in agreement that ethnographic research can provide insight in the marketing of services and products when the approach is used among customers. After all, just as my Jeep Grand Cherokee resides in my garage, the brand itself resides in my mind and is defined by my perceptions, attitudes, preferences and beliefs of the Jeep product.

But the creation of the physical aspects of the brand, its nuances, its form, and ultimately its inherent strength still remain with its creators, back at the factory shop and in the corporate boardroom. In short, the marketing manager continues to be the caretaker of the brand.

That being the case, marketing organizations must open themselves up not only to what impacts their brand externally, but internally. Ethnographic research within the organizational environment can be instrumental in helping to overcome marketing hurdles, identify opportunities, break down communication barriers and re-invigorate stale brands.

So corporate ethnography provides us added context within which to create and recreate our brand. Following are a few exemplars for your consideration:

  • At a General Motors plant, ethnographic research revealed that “workers and supervisors were seven times more likely to assign blame for problems than to offer praise for good work.” It also revealed “how blaming patterns followed the flow of work inside the plant.” It quickly became apparent why a new quality assurance program was not working in this particular GM plant. While workers were eager to do a good job and receive praise for their efforts, blame was so pervasive that no quality training program could take hold until the plant’s cultural realities were addressed.

How effective is your training development when the program doesn’t acknowledge subtle cultural differences among different populations within your organization?

  • The Canadian central bank’s management develops its economic ideology through the generation of a White Book prepared by its in-house economists. However, ethnographic research identified a “strong tacit influence at work in the preparation of the White Book, with the staff inclined to shade their story to accommodate (bank) executives’ expectations.”

What is the quality of your internal intelligence? As a marketing decision-maker, are you getting the unbiased point-of-view desired to make appropriate policy decisions? Or are you somehow allowing your view of the real world to be shaded, thereby creating an inherent disadvantage to your marketing efforts?

  • At Xerox, an anthropological approach to understanding communication processes revealed that product managers were not communicating with each other, just with their immediate staff members. It became apparent that managers working on similar projects were heading in different directions, squandering resources and corporate knowledge. To address this, Xerox managers reinstated department meetings that had previously been eliminated.

How are your internal resources being used? Is the flow of information effective and efficient or are there impediments to the flow based upon built-in corporate policy or process?

Thwart disasters

Recently, countless examples present themselves as to how using an emic perspective in ethnographic research to look at one’s corporate communities might have helped thwart near brand disasters. Had some of the following brands examined themselves from within earlier, one does wonder:

  • Would the McDonald’s brand (and stock price) be at its current low had the company truly understood the internal value of local store input, and how this input (in terms of things like new menu products) was being fed up through the organization through a nationwide marketing intelligence process? Given this insight, would the fast-food giant have released nearly all of its co-op advertising agencies as it did nearly a decade ago?
  • Might Kmart have been better positioned vis-à-vis its discount competitors had its internal structure allowed management to accept the nature of its real estate portfolio and its related target markets? Wasn’t Kmart ideally positioned to take advantage of the “urban” value these stores inherently provided, as it is attempting to do today?
  • Should Disney management have had a better understanding of the impact of watering down Disney’s focus with the acquisition of TV networks and other media? Shouldn’t management have kept Mickey focused on family entertainment and not “media convergence” as Disney’s corporate marketing strategy?

Now more than ever

I’d argue that now more than ever it is imperative that marketing decision-makers swim in the streams of their own organization in an effort to gain insight into their brand and the inherent nature of that brand based upon a greater understanding of the organizational culture itself.

If one accepts that the brand is an expression of our organizational philosophies, its people, its beliefs and processes, then using an ethnographic methodology to examine those organizational structures can be competitively rewarding, if not downright cathartic. In short, to capitalize on your brand’s inherent power, you must understand your own organization. For as Marshall McLuhan told us long ago, “The medium is the message.”

Additional reading

Le Beau, Christina, (September 20, 2000). “Anthropologists in the corporate jungle.” Business Week.

Kane, Kate, (October 1996). “Anthropologists go native in the corporate world.” Fast Company, vol. 1, no. 6, p. 60.

Schultz, Donald; Barnes, Beth E. (1998). Strategic Advertising Campaigns.

Smart, Graham, (1998). “Mapping conceptual worlds: Using interpretative ethnography to explore knowledge-making in a professional community.” Journal of Business Communication, v. 35, no. 1.

Swan, John E et al. (Spring 1996). “Ethnography as a method for broadening sales force research: Promise and potential.” Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, v. 16, no. 2, pp. 57-64.