What is Ethnographic Market Research

How can you best understand who your market audience is? How about hiring someone with a MBA? They know a lot about business and sales. But what do they know about human nature and cultural factors that influence buying behavior? What do they know about how people see a product's intended use and actual use? You may even asked yourself at some point, "Why do we hire people with MBAs to study human behavior?" Back in the 1960's and 70's some entrepreneurial spirited business folks saw the light. They probably said something like, "hey remember those guys we used to make fun of in grad school studying apes and stuff? Why don't we hire them to study how people use our products? They seem to know a lot more than we do when it comes to how people use our stuff." They were right. This stuff anthropologist refer to are artifacts. And if you want to know how to market your artifacts you don't need someone with a MBA, you need an Anthropologist who is trained in Ethnographic Research (see Malinowski).

Now ask yourself, "who is the largest segment of the population who buys my stuff?" Is it 18 to 37 year olds? I think you know the answer to this one because most likely you see this person every morning you wake up and look in the mirror. Baby boomers consist of 78.2 million Americans. That's a lot of people being left out in the cold.

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