Recherche et Applications en Marketing, vol. 24, n° 1/2009
The Contribution of Ethnology to Research in Consumer
and Shopper Behavior: toward Ethnomarketing
Olivier Badot
Professor, ESCP-EAP and IAE Caen-Basse Normandie
Visiting Professor, Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa
Christophe Carrier
Managing Director, Leroy Merlin Veille et Prospective
Bernard Cova
Professor, Euromed Management, Marseille
Visiting Professor, Università Bocconi, Milan
Dominique Desjeux
Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology
Faculté des Sciences Humaines et Sociales, Sorbonne (Paris 5)
Visiting Professor, USF (United States) and University of Guangzhou (China)
Marc Filser
Professor
IAE Dijon and Cermab-LEG (CNRS UMR 5118)
Université de Bourgogne
The authors would like to express their sincere thanks to the reviewers of this article for their constructive criticism and to Dominique Roux for
his sound advice. They would also like to express their gratitude to their respective organizations for supporting this research project.
The authors can be contacted at the following e-mail addresses:
– obadot@escp-eap.net
– christophe.carrier@adeoservices.com
– bernard.cova@euromed-marseille.com
– d.desjeux@argonautes.fr
– Marc.Filser@u-bourgogne.fr
P E D A G O G Y
INTRODUCTION
Over the past 20 years, various attempts to
expand the area of applicability for marketing
approaches and consumption studies have revealed
the need to develop a conceptual and methodological
apparatus that – notably by operating in the direct
lineage of sociology, anthropology and ethnology –
is adapted to problems entailing much more than a
simple product purchase in the strict sense of this
term (Dion, 2008). This apparatus might supersede
purchasing behavior models that have mainly highlighted
the cognitive dimensions of decision making
and try to account for the whole of the phenomenon of
consumption (Badot, 2005; Badot and Cova, 1992;
Desjeux, 1990, 2006; Filser, 1996; Hirschman and
Holbrook, 1992; Sherry, 1987, 1995). It should be
part of the so-called Interpretive Consumer Research
(ICR) approach to consumer behavior (Beckmann
and Elliott, 2000; Bergadaà and Nyeck, 1992;
Holbrook and O’Shaughnessy, 1988). With its “postmodern
shift” (Firat and Venkatesh, 1995), this is a
school that has helped to structure an entirely original
field of research (Arnould and Thompson, 2005)
known as Consumer Culture Theory (CCT), which
can be defined as “an interdisciplinary field comprised
of macro, interpretive and critical approaches and
perspectives to – and on – consumer behavior” (Belk
and Sherry, 2007, p. xiii).
The fact remains that the need to enter the social
sciences arena, and notably the field of ethnology,
does not concern marketing alone among the management
sciences. Bonnafous-Boucher (2005) has
shown how – from the 1970s onwards and starting in
the United States before coming to France – organizational
theory has opened up over time, notably in the
field of sociology. This research branch has helped to
shape a type of organizational sociology that is often
expressed through the sociology of companies.
Although less institutionalized, ethnological research
Olivier Badot, Christophe Carrier, Bernard Cova, Dominique Desjeux, Marc Filser94
ABSTRACT
This theoretical paper analyzes the influence of ethnology on contemporary research in consumer and shopper behavior and
in retailing. Within this framework, it defines the concept of ethnomarketing and sketches its epistemological status and operating
rules. The final part points out the managerial contributions of ethnomarketing.
Key words: Ethnomarketing, ethnology of consumption, consumer behavior, shopper behavior.
SUMMARY
INTRODUCTION
ETHNOLOGY OF CONSUMPTION
AND SHOPPING
The development of macro-social and microsocial
studies of consumption
The ethnology of proximity applied to consump-
tion
The ethnology of proximity applied to shopping
OPERATIVE MODALITIES OF RESEARCH IN
ETHNOMARKETING
Framed induction
Quasi-ethnographic data compilation
Cultural analysis
Anthropological interpretations
Interpretations leading to a re-enchantment of
consumption
THE MANAGERIAL APPLICATIONS
OF ETHNOMARKETING
Expanding the toolbox of marketing research
Developing a hedonistic business proposition
A non-superficial customer orientation
CONCLUSION AND PERSPECTIVES
The Contribution of Ethnology to Research in Consumer and Shopper Behavior: toward Ethnomarketing 95
into companies and organizations has also flourished,
notably under the aegis of the Centre de Recherche en
Gestion de l’École Polytechnique in Paris. At the same
time, Bonnafous-Boucher (2005) has also regretted
that when management researchers embark upon an
ethnological approach, they generally use only a small
proportion of its potential insofar as they tend to
reduce it to a method – or technique – of participant
observation. Influenced by North American, English
and French schools, recent developments in marketing
and consumer behavior research appear to have avoided
this trap by proposing ethnological interpretations
(study of potentialities, symbolic systems, religious
connotations, rituals, production of myths, etc.) whose
main feature is their anthropological vision of
consumption, i.e., their cultural analysis of the phenomena
being observed (Sunderland and Denny, 2007). In
1987, Desjeux coined a word to designate this
approach – ethnomarketing (Desjeux, 1990).
“Ethnomarketing” is a way to describe ethnology
applied to the study of consumer or shopper behavior –
regardless of whether the purpose is to achieve something
actionable. In a less action-oriented framework,
ethnomarketing might help to enhance understanding
of consumer and shopper behavior. It offers a different
vision, one transcending existing methods via modalities
that will be developed below. From a more actionable
and management-oriented perspective, the purpose
of ethnomarketing is to identify – based on ethnographic
observation and anthropological analysis –
propositions that target actors in the commercial
world and which can translate into a real marketing
apparatus (positioning, targeting, marketing strategy,
marketing mix, etc.). Ethnomarketing’s contribution
is supposed to be that it improves performance in
commercial terms (number of customers, revenues,
returns rate), but also in marketing (satisfaction,
reputation, image) and financial terms (profitability,
higher brand value). Ethnomarketing is therefore
clearly differentiated from its mother disciplines,
which are anthropology, ethnology and ethnography
(See Frame 1).
Within this framework, the present article, which is
theoretical in nature, starts (1) by suggesting an analysis
of how technology (relating mainly to consumption
and shopping) has contributed to modern research on
consumer behavior and retailing. This is followed (2)
by a specification of the operative modalities driving
research in ethnomarketing, notably the different
phases involved in such an approach. A third section
(3) indicates the managerial enhancements derived
from ethnomarketing. The conclusion raises questions
relating to the limitations of this approach and
offers possible future paths for ethnomarketing.
Frame 1. – The disciplines that gave birth to ethnomarketing
(Adapted from Monjaret and Provost, 2003)
Anthropology is the science of human beings, their origins, history, social behaviors and activities.
Encompassing pre-history, ethnology and sociology, its analysis is situated in a theoretical and comparative
perspective. Physical anthropology focuses on humans’ biological aspects; economic anthropology looks at
modes of production in the material world; and social anthropology looks at social and family organization,
politics and religion.
Ethnology is the discipline that, by synthesizing and analyzing “field data”, focuses on the study of cultures
(variables and invariables) based on qualitative investigations of small social units. After first studying
remote societies, Western ethnologists began looking at their own communities in the 1970s, first in rural settings
and ultimately in cities. Anglo-American researchers call ethnology “cultural anthropology”.
Whereas anthropology and ethnology are disciplines, ethnography is an investigative method whose
priority is to mobilize informal interviews with selected informants and/or conduct on-site observations that
tend to be participant in nature and written up in notebooks called “field logs” or “field diaries”.
Ethnographers can also use more formal types of interviews (semi-directive or open) and even questionnairebased
surveys to verify any trends they identify via a more qualitative approach. Analysis here involves iteration
between the data that have been collected and a progressive interpretation of indices, all of which ultimately
produces a general explanatory thread.
Olivier Badot, Christophe Carrier, Bernard Cova, Dominique Desjeux, Marc Filser96
ETHNOLOGY OF CONSUMPTION AND SHOPPING
This first section traces social sciences’ contribution
to the study of consumption and shopping and
presents the main sources and characteristics of the
ethnology of consumption, shopping and retail outlets.
Finally, it offers a table summarizing seminal as
well as more recent studies focused on the main
themes found in Consumer Culture Theory (CCT).
The development of macro-social and micro-social
studies of consumption
Consumption analysis can be conducted at different
levels using different scales of observation that
do not produce the same results (Desjeux, 1998).
Economists and psychologists, for instance, have
mainly stressed analyses of motivations and purchasing
decisions based on an explanatory model of
consumer rationality in which consumption is viewed
as an individual act. Social sciences like history, but
above all anthropology, sociology and ethnology
have proposed other approaches, based either on
other scales of observation (macro and micro-social) or
a different breakdown of reality.
At the macro-social level, it is mainly thanks to
the initiative of Anglo-Saxon (and mainly British)
researchers like Daniel Miller, Colin Campbell, Peter
Corrigan and Don Slater that consumption and retailing
research was able to develop at the intersection of
social sciences, in the strict sense of this term, and
consumer behavior (Desjeux, 2001; Ritzer, 2001). If
Great Britain has been an inspiration for research
into the sociology of consumption, it is clearly
because the country was the cradle of a neighboring
school of thought that has been widely disseminated
across the world, namely, Cultural Studies. Hoggart,
Raymond Williams, Edward P. Thompson, and later,
members of the Birmingham University Centre for
Contemporary Cultural Studies, opened the door to a
veritable body of research into “popular culture”.
The founding act of Cultural Studies was Hoggart’s
“The Uses of Literacy” (1957), a text where the
author mobilized an ethnographic survey to deliver a
lifestyle analysis of the English working classes,
focusing specifically on how the contents of the
means of communication in use at the time (TV
series, tabloid press, romantic novels) were being
perceived. The common feature of all these “macrosocial”
studies was their “phenomenological and
comprehensive approach to forms of sociality and the
role of the imaginary within people’s daily and collective
experiences, based on the embeddedness of these
two dimensions at the local and proximate level”
(Grassi, 2005, p. 95).
At the micro-social level, it was research into the
role of consumption objects in the construction of
couples, families, and communities, etc., that paved
the way to another original school. According to
Douglas and Isherwood (1979), whereas economists
assume that objects are desired first and foremost for
individual and psychological reasons, ethnologists
believe instead that people acquire objects to give
and share something and to fulfill social obligations.
As expressed by Laburthe-Tolra and Warnier (1993),
the self uses objects and signs (in fact, the two are
often the same) to define their identity. In other
words, we are what we consume. Closer to marketing
itself, in an attempt to renew and expand microsocial
understanding of consumption, the ICR school
and the CCT field have both borrowed generously
from social sciences, both in terms of methods and
also with regard to topics of study. This is because
ICR is defined as a set of interpretive methodologies,
including “existentialism, philosophy, semiotics, hermeneutics,
introspection, critical theory, cultural studies,
post-structuralism, feminist theory, discourse
analysis and post-modernism” (Beckmann and
Elliott, 2000, p. 1), all of which can be used to
understand consumption-related phenomena. CCT,
on the other hand, focuses on four main areas of
study (Arnould and Thompson, 2005), namely:
consumers’ identity-related projects; consumption
subcultures; strategies for interpreting market supply
from consumers’ perspective; and the socio-historical
modeling of consumption.
The ethnology of proximity applied to consumption
For Laburthe-Tolra and Warnier (1993, pp. 338-
339), there was nothing new about ethnological literature
on consumption: “As far back as we can go in
the history of ethnology, observers’ attention has
The Contribution of Ethnology to Research in Consumer and Shopper Behavior: toward Ethnomarketing 97
been attracted to the consumption habits of exotic
peoples: the clothes and finery they wear, the food
they eat, various prohibitions relating to such category
of objects depending on gender, status or social
rank”. Modern ethnology, on the other hand, seems
to have little to say on the matter (Berger, 2004). For
Laburthe-Tolra and Warnier (1993), this was because
the West, and social sciences in general (and ethnology
in particular), has long been dominated by Marxist
theory, which posits workers’ alienation through the
objects they manufacture. As such, it would appear
that no real efforts have ever been made to establish a
unique field of consumption ethnology, one marked
by perspectives that are both economic (relationship to
production, distribution, money and markets) and
social (relationship to society and civilization) in
nature. Any breakthrough in this respect has occurred
in very specific areas: habitat, food and symbols.
For Althabe (1992), in France the ethnology of
proximity emerged from a demand for ethnography
in the 1980s, connected to companies via a corporate
culture construct, and to urban planning via renovation
operations in poor suburban neighborhoods. In this
view, the new ethnology could use the socio-cultural
potentialities of these zones’ populations while
simultaneously signifying social sciences’ internal
transformations, whose analysis should be rooted
less within a global explanatory structuralist perspective
and more within the conception of subjects as
producers of social reality (Augé, 1994). For Bouvier
(2002), the ethnology of proximity also draws from
earlier research projects, including studies by Van
Gennep, Varagnac, Dumont, Sébillot and, more
recently, Cuisenier, focused on working class folklore,
rituals and customs in Western societies. Within
this corpus, it is Bromberger (1998) who has crystallized
studies of an ethnological nature, in the lineage
of de Certeau (1980a and 1980b). These studies
focused on a wide variety of domestic pastimes and
leisure pursuits, or what the researcher called “ordinary
passions”, including household pets, gardening, doit-yourself
activities, genealogy, heritage activities,
wine, calligraphy, weather, personal computing, rock
’n’ roll, gambling, advertising, outdoor activities,
jogging, wind sailing, motorbiking, extreme sports,
esoteric pursuits and alternative medicine.
The ethnology of consumption, on the other
hand, has only focused on consumption itineraries.
This ranges from the domestic locations where decisions
are made about goods and services – and where
such items are used – to the conditions governing
their purchase (Desjeux, 2006). In the United States,
the main driver behind the ethnology of consumption
was a project called “Consumer Behavior Odyssey”,
based on research by Belk (Belk, Wallendorf and
Sherry, 1989; Belk, 1991), Arnould and Price (1993),
Arnould and Wallendorf (1994), recently extended
by Sunderland and Denny (2007). All of these studies
have roots in the interpretive corpus of
consumption research (Holbrook and
O’Shaughnessy, 1988).
From a more managerial perspective, it is mainly
Mariampolski (1999 and 2006) who furthered ethnology’s
application to marketing with an astonishing
research project that consisted of filming people showering
in an attempt to identify – within the confines
of an applied study funded by a bathroom fittings
manufacturer – practices associated with bathing.
The discovery of rituals of relaxation, meditation and
even prayers enabled the partner company to broaden
its product range and design shower systems more
like spas than something purely functional
(Mariampolski, 2006).
Recent market shifts, involving the emergence of
increasingly individualistic consumers along with
sellers’ application of increasingly segmented, targeted
and personalized marketing strategies, are often
construed as factors forcing market analysts to envision
actors’ practices in a much more refined manner
than used to be necessary in the era of mass markets.
To improve understanding of sellers and consumers’
practices and their interactions, firms have recently
started to use approaches borrowed from ethnologists’
and ethnographers’ methods, all grouped under
the name of ethnomarketing (Desjeux, 1990 and
1997). It is around this notion of ethnomarketing or
“market-oriented ethnography” (Arnould and
Wallendorf, 1994) that Eric Arnould and Dominique
Desjeux, both trained anthropologists and similarly
spent time in West Africa, met and developed the
Euro-American approach to consumption and ethnology
that can be found in many CCT studies.
The challenges inherent to an “ethnology of
proximity” (Augé and Colleyn, 2004, p. 71) applied to
consumption should be confronted directly, despite
the risk (caused by the influence of management
constraints) of veering off into an abbreviated
science that tries to take positions, affirm doctrines or
propose measures.
Olivier Badot, Christophe Carrier, Bernard Cova, Dominique Desjeux, Marc Filser98
The ethnology of proximity applied to shopping
Empirical studies of the phenomenology of shopping
and retail outlets – whether this refers to pointsof-sale,
supermarkets, department stores, malls or
even amusement parks – seem first of all to have
focused on the image of these locations before
concentrating more generally on their symbolic
significance, purchasers and salespersons’ behavior
or the locations’ layout and design (Mick et al.,
2004). Even when they do not relate directly to retail
outlets per se, certain semio-ethnological studies on
cities or geographic areas have inspired an ethnology
of the commercial world, particularly California trips
by Morin (1970) and Eco (1985), “Amérique” by
Baudrillard (1986), analyses by Sorkin (1992) and
Hannigan (1998) of American cities’ “theme-parkization”
or recent studies on Las Vegas (Firat, 2001).
More qualitative than other studies in this field –
like those focused on the image of a point-of-sale, a
topic inaugurated by Arons (1961) – the approach
initiated by Holbrook (1978) and furthered by Sherry
(1998) in his book, “Servicescapes”, has tried both to
interpret commercial imagery as a system of signs
and to analyze the social meaning of retail outlets
like Nike Town in Chicago (Sherry, 1998). Most of
these studies have concentrated especially on malls
(Bloch, Ridgway and Dawson, 1994; Nelson, 1998;
Poupard, 2005; Zepp, 1986) or places where people go
for entertainment, like amusement parks or holiday
resorts such as Center Parcs (Graillot, 2005;
Ladwein, 2002; Zukin, 1991) or a combination of the
two (Andrieu, Badot and Macé, 2003; Hetzel, 1997;
Miller et al., 1998; Peñaloza, 1999). Let us mention
several analyses of different types of points-of-sale
(large stores, hypermarkets, supermarkets, warehouse
clubs, flagship stores, specialized chains, etc.)
and forms of shopping, which may be sedentary or
not in the case of outdoor markets (de La Pradelle,
1996) or flea markets (Sciardet, 2003). In 2005, the
magazine “Ethnologie française” came out with a
special issue dedicated to “shopping in the city”, ranging
from more traditional forms like local shops in
London (a category in decline) to hypermarkets, the
purpose being to signify the topicality of ethnographic
and methodological approaches in areas like
shopping and retailing.
Regarding the ethnology of consumption or
points-of-sale, Table 1 offers a summary of leading
seminal or more recent studies in France and North
America, linking them to inaugural studies in the
field of CCT. What becomes apparent is that even if
CCT does not rely on ethnomarketing-related
approaches alone (Arnould and Thompson, 2005),
ethnomarketing is still what sustains its main areas of
investigation, with the exception of a few neglected
contexts that are very dear to CCT, like the developing
world, consumption by underprivileged populations
and outdoor consumption.
OPERATIVE MODALITIES OF RESEARCH
IN ETHNOMARKETING
This second section analyzes the epistemological
posture of ethnomarketing as a form of peculiar
induction, demonstrating that whereas data compilation
in ethnomarketing borrows from ethnography, its
interpretation tends to borrow from anthropology.
Framed induction
Although marketing research is still largely hypothetical-deductive
in nature, it seems to have no problem
accommodating a research framework that is
geared less toward complete formalization or the production
of laws (or quasi-laws) and more toward the
creation of “predictive hypotheses based on empirical
benchmarks that can be confronted with reality”
(Micaleff, 1990, p. 197). Hence, the emergence of
studies that are less focused on a comprehensive
identification of variables that could explain a given
practice or attitude toward some category of products
or retailing in a particular situation, i.e., studies that do
not seek to achieve a quantified and globalizing sort of
modeling. These analyses, which are more qualitative
in nature, attempt to describe the diversity of reality,
stylizing analytical categories, revealing the
great principles and social mechanisms at work and
bringing out the meaning that actors attribute to their
own conduct. As summarized by GarabuauMoussaoui
(1999, p. 347), “qualitative analysis seeks
The Contribution of Ethnology to Research in Consumer and Shopper Behavior: toward Ethnomarketing 99
Table 1. – Fields investigated by CCT and ethnographic approaches to consumption
Fields investigated by CCT
(Arnould and Thompson, 2005)
Ethnographic approaches
to point-of-sale visits
Ethnographic approaches
to consumption
Theme
Construction
of consumer
identity
Consumption
sub-cultures
Market supply
interpretation
strategies
Socio-
historical
modeling of
consumption
Origin
of studies
North
America
France
North
America
France
North
America
France
North
America
France
Foundations
Zepp (1986)
Desjeux (1990)
Nelson (1998)
Bloch, Ridgway
and Dawson
(1994)
De La Pradelle
(1996)
Arnold,
Kozinets and
Handelman
(2001)
Floch (1988)
Kowinski
(1985)
McGrath (1989)
Lallement
(1999)
Recent
applications
Goss (1993)
Cochoy (2005)
Peñaloza (1999)
Poupard (2005)
Kozinets et al.
(2002)
Desjeux (2003)
Shields (1994)
Andrieu, Badot
and Macé
(2003)
Foundations
Douglas and
Isherwood
(1979)
De Certeau
(1980a et b)
Schouten and
McAlexander
(1995)
Bromberger
(1998)
McCracken
(1988)
Ritzer (2001)
Eco (1985)
Hetzel (1997)
Belk,
Wallendorf and
Sherry (1989)
Van Gennep
(1924)
Halbwachs
(1933)
Recent
applications
Arnould and
Price (1993)
Garabuau-
Moussaoui
(1999)
Carù and Cova
(2003)
Kaufmann
(2005)
Thompson and
Troester (2002)
Bernard (2004)
Lejeallle (2008)
McQuarrie and
Mick (1999)
Roux (2007)
Firat (2001)
Ladwein (2002)
Olivier Badot, Christophe Carrier, Bernard Cova, Dominique Desjeux, Marc Filser100
the widest possible range of behavior (whose modalities
might be contradictory or, at least, nuanced)”.
Marketing research influenced by ethnology is more a
question of an inductive stance relying upon an ethnographic
kind of protocol. The four main characteristics
of the ethnographic approach as delineated by
Arnould and Wallendorf (1994) seem to correspond
to the current conditions in which consumption and
shopping can be analyzed (Badot and Filser, 2006):
– The prioritization of facts and actions in real
situations (importance of situational factors in
the purchasing decision);
– Long-term experiential participation in specific
universes (consumers’ search for a projective
experience);
– Crossing of data from multiple sources to avoid
fragmentary realities (consumers’ attitudinal
complexity);
– The fact that the data compilation process is
dictated by the dynamics of the phenomenon
being studied, i.e., it has not been rigidly predetermined
(weakening of the purchase’s predetermined
component and variance between attitude
and behavior).
Arnould and Wallendorf have summarized the
ethnographic approach’s dynamic nature (1994,
p. 485) by stating that “ethnography is not just a data
compilation technique but tries to clarify the different
ways in which cultures (or micro-cultures) simultaneously
construct and are formulated by human
behavior and experience”. As explained by
Garabuau-Moussaoui (1999, p. 352), induction –
which is close to the “grounded theory” enunciated
by Glaser and Strauss (1967) – is forged by accumulating
data that should be as precise and close to reality
as possible, operating through a kind progressive
abstraction in which the analyst “ascends through a
succession of levels, rising from the real world to the
conceptual plane”. However, as noted by Desjeux
(2003) and Garabuau-Moussaoui (1999), pure induction
does not exist, i.e., there is often a need for a
conceptual system to frame an induction. In the case of
ethnomarketing, such framing is mitigated by an
anthropological vision that constantly questions
researchers’ cultural presuppositions and forces them
to lend credence to consumers’ points of view
(Sunderland and Denny, 2007).
Quasi-ethnographic data compilation
As explained by Grimshaw (2001, p. 53), ever
since Malinowski ethnography has been viewed as a
kind of “experiential knowledge”, an initiation where
understanding derives both from physical and sensorial
experience and from intellectual reflection. Research
in ethnomarketing borrows its data compilation techniques
from ethnography, and its processes and analytical
frameworks from ethnology. All of this can be
reconnected to marketing approaches, usually at a
micro-social or micro-individual level.
Even if research in ethnomarketing relies on traditional
data compilation techniques like secondary
documentary research (notably involving the trade
press and journals), informal interviews with experts,
consumers, window shoppers or sales staff are also
very important. The main components borrowed
from ethnography are participant observation, field
logs (whose contents require analysis), photos, whatever
commercial and promotional materials have been
compiled and a semiological analysis of all of the
above (See details in Frame 2).
The ethnomarketing approach (and notably its
introspective orientation) is close to Garfinkel’s version
of ethnomethodology (1967), which sought to
understand the methods that people design and use to
organize their daily lives, along with the way they
give meaning to their social lives. However, there is a
difference between “ethnological methods” and “ethnomethodology”
since the latter is less a method for
studying behavior directly than one for studying the
methods that people use to organize their social lives
and relationships to others.
Cultural analysis
Analysis of the materials collected during ethnomarketing
research usually relies on an iteration process
described by Arnould and Wallendorf (1994) as
materializing in a back-and-forth between observations,
analyses, interpretative categorization and the
theories being mobilized. This is a kind of triangulation
process that consists of confronting facts, actors’
discourse (apprehended through the trade press or via
informal interviews with staff members, experts or
consumers) and scientific research (Webb, 1978).
After a floating analysis of all the information compi-
The Contribution of Ethnology to Research in Consumer and Shopper Behavior: toward Ethnomarketing 101
led, data analysis of this sort will adopt an iterative
approach linking:
– Content analysis of field logs and interview
notes. Whereas interview analysis can be categorized
as a relatively standard kind of manual
content analysis, field log analysis focuses on
thematic recurrences but also on weak signals,
in the sense attributed to this term by Baumard
(1996), who considers that the scope of such
signals is determined by the relative nature of
the receptors’ identification and interpretation
capabilities. Both of these levels of analysis
(recurrences and weak signals) must be incorporated
since, as explained by Arnould and
Wallendorf (1994) with McQuarrie and Mick
(1992), significant cultural values are often
expressed through behaviors that are not only
different but can sometimes even be considered
antagonistic;
– Semiological analysis of primary materials and
photos. Two kinds of analyses can be implemented
at this level (Barthes, 1985; Eco, 1985).
The first, which is a direct extension of Todorov
and Greimas’ structural analysis, focuses on the
organization of discourse and any underlying
formal models. The second, a veritable case of
“applied or figurative semiotics”, is quite close to
Barthes’ mythological analysis (1957), which
was an attempt to develop an interpretative discourse
in a particular context. Semiological
analysis not only complements content analysis
of field logs and informal interviews but,
through the materials it uses, also enables preliminary
general analysis while helping to formulate
and identify the elements involved in its
illustration;
– The phenomena being analyzed will be subject to
interpretive categorization – in Arnould and
Wallendorf’s sense of the term (1994) – into
words (norms, automatic reactions, performances),
themes (imminent religiosity or tribal
awakening) or behavioral sequences (shoppers’
itinerary);
– Theoretical discussion of the interpretations
being proposed, involving a return to theoryrelated
literature and to the authors that resonate
in such interpretations.
Anthropological interpretations
In an ethnomarketing approach, any data compiled
and phenomena observed in a commercial environment
will be subsequently interpreted not only
through the use of theoretical marketing frameworks
but also via the main themes found in anthropology
and ethnology. As noted by Spiggle (1994), analysis (a
phrase that is often confused with interpretation)
consists of processing data. Interpretation, on the
other hand, seeks to provide meaning by designing
conceptual frameworks that, in ethnomarketing, borrow
heavily from the frameworks found in ethnology
and anthropology – which include, as noted by
Laburthe-Tolra and Warnier (1993) and Bouvier
(2002), the study of potentialities, symbolic systems,
connotations in religion (notably rituals) and the production
of myths.
As stated by Bouvier (2002, p. 75), the goal here is
to focus on scansions and associations, potentialities,
new factors like perpetuation, resurgence, re-modeling
and/or the emergence of those values and practices
that “at a subliminal level or peripherally, if not frontally
sometimes, can re-design the meaning of the
space between people”. This is redolent, for instance,
of the study of new forms of tribality that arise as a
result of people’s ordinary passions (Bromberger,
1998); the fabrication of more or less factitious
authenticities (Cova and Cova, 2001); and the idea of
self-gratification through shopping (Miller, 1998). In
Bouvier’s words (2002, p. 75), “these efforts are not
examples of snobbery but attempts to manufacture
something significant that is proximate”.
Augé (1986) recalls that for Lévi-Strauss (1950),
all cultures can be construed as a set of symbolic systems
that express certain aspects of reality and develop
with them linguistic, economic, artistic, scientific,
and religious relationships. Each system, however,
has its own rhythm and symbolism. What helps us to
perceive the “corridors of connection” is, in Augé’s
words, the impalpable moment when citizens transition
from one system to another. The operational
field provides numerous examples where ethnomarketing
enables the decoding of some hidden function.
Examples include projective products that nostalgic
customers purchase when they get back from
vacation (like Tefal tajine makers) – or DIY stores
where customers feel close to professional sales
staff because the store layout is reminiscent
Olivier Badot, Christophe Carrier, Bernard Cova, Dominique Desjeux, Marc Filser102
Frame 2. – The main compilation techniques in ethnomarketing
Canonical approach: participant observation
Participant observation is usually a sort of “floating observation” that involves little real participation
(except for in-store purchasing). It is, however, very embedded in locations and practices, and consists of
research characterized by a period of intense social interactions between researchers and subjects, in the
places where the latter operate. Data are collected systematically during this period, with observers becoming
personally immersed in people’s lives and sharing their experiences.
The strength of this data compilation technique is, according to Bryman (1989, p. 142), more a question of
understanding (which assumes empathy with things and the ability to see them from within) than simply
explaining (which is more a case of causal analysis done from the outside) actors’ subtle behaviors within complex
organizations or situations. For Bryman (1988, p. 45), having been influenced by phenomenological
thinking, the approach aims to produce a veritable “anthropological fresco” of social phenomena in a similar
vein to studies by Whyte with youth gangs in one of Boston’s Italian neighborhoods, by Gans with the
Italian-American community, by Dalton on the lives of executives, by Roy and Lupton on factory workers, and
generally by researchers applying Chicago School principles (Chapoulie, 2001).
Researchers’ status, when conducting informal interviews with customers or sales staff during site visits and
observation sessions, is rarely revealed, something that raises ethical problems. However, unlike the professional
practices associated with mystery shopping, no information is transmitted subsequently to firms for staff
evaluation purposes. Customarily, the main criticism of participant observation is the risk – caused by the
method’s description of social phenomena from actors’ perspective – that researchers’ involvement will
replace the distanciation that is supposed to define their position (Lapassade, 1996, p. 53). For Benson and
Hugues (1983), “involvement must be offset by a disinterested and objective attitude, without which this
kind of approach will be unable to match the standards of objectivity required for a scientific investigation”.
Participant observers should avoid describing the social world using “profane” language. At the same time, they
must not detach themselves to such an extent that they have no chance of making any significant discoveries.
After all, in social sciences, involvement is a cornerstone of face-to-face relationships. It is not really a risk but
a condition of ethnological practice that can also offer opportunities as part of an objectivation process
enabling the mobilization of a sensitive dimension of knowledge.
Nowadays, participant observation possesses a double virtual reality online, in the shape of netnography
(Kozinets, 2002), which is an attempt to apprehend/collect data derived from researchers’ involvement in a virtual
community creating access to participants’ written exchanges. According to Bernard (2004, p. 52), this is
a useful technique because it gives researchers “an understanding of the symbolic world of the subjects they
study. By becoming one of them, by learning their language, researchers will start to see the world with their
eyes and perceive their shared meanings”.
Writing field logs
Copious note-taking takes place during ethnomarketing observation sessions (using “traditional” vehicles
like notebooks but also “informal” ones like paper napkins or torn off bits of newspaper); during site visits or
simple observation sessions; and/or following participant observation sessions (pseudo-purchasing or purchasing
with or without discussions with sales staff or other shoppers). Field logs are used to note a wide range of
information (descriptions, drawings, people’s sense of surprise when they first enter a site, pre-analysis,
theoretical references, etc.) – all of which constitutes the field study’s “living memory” (Fetterman, 1989, p.
73). Using field logs means that during the data analysis phase, the sites’ atmosphere at a particular moment in
time can be revisited. These reminiscences can be accentuated via sound recordings (using tape decks or
handheld recorders) or films (Belk and Kozinets, 2005).
The Contribution of Ethnology to Research in Consumer and Shopper Behavior: toward Ethnomarketing 103
Introspection
The rise of ethnography within marketing is based on a misunderstanding, namely, the mooted end of word-forword
consumer narratives, which are supposed to be replaced by researcher observations of consumers,
construed nowadays a “a tool for overcoming the limitations of asking” (Mariampolski, 1999) – especially
when they benefit from the advent of new video technologies. Ethnographic videos of consumers or, at the
extreme, ethological videos, have become the apex of qualitative research in marketing.Yet, ethnography not
only involves observation but also includes techniques enabling a compilation of verbatim statements that help
to supplement understanding of the phenomenon being questioned.
In this sense, the ethnographer needs more than a single interpretation of observations and should be able to ask
the party under observation to share their own “folkloric” interpretation (in the positive sense of the term) of the
behavior in question. This reduces the risk of an over-interpretation that often stems from a mobilization of
theories and concepts that are too general to enhance people’s understanding of a given situation. It is at this
level that introspective shopping and consumption narratives become possible. The ethnography of
consumption experiences seeks to discover the things that are enjoyable to consumers who may be more
hedonistic than functional in nature. Observation does not suffice at this level, nor does speech in action or
informal interviewing. What the ethnographer needs are introspective narratives increasing familiarity with
consumers’ intimate states and deep sentiments during the experience (Wallendorf and Brucks, 1993). The
experiential perspective of consumption argues for further advances in compiling this kind of narrative. It has
become easier to achieve due to the prevalence of reflexivity today, and given people’s growing habit of talking
about themselves, for example, online. The combination of introspection with observation enables a fuller kind
of ethnography, one that is able to account for both consumption and shopping experiences.
Taking photos and collecting sales and promotional materials
To conduct its analysis, ethnomarketing research often relies on studies of visual materials that are relevant
either directly (prospectuses, signs, logos, etc.) or indirectly (in the case of items like photos found at a
point-of-sale or the clothing, attitudes, behavior, equipment and utensils characterizing staff members, customers
or consumers). In a sense, photography has become a veritable research material, rooted in a visual ethnology
approach that Cochoy (2005, p. 81) has described as a way to “ensure the visibility of the things that
everyone sees yet does not see” after using a series of photos rooted in recurring observation studies.
As noted by Augé and Colleyn (2004, p. 67), visual ethnology combines three types of activity: “ethnographic
surveys based on the use of audiovisual recording techniques; the use of these techniques as a mode of writing
and publication; and ultimately letting images – taken in the widest sense of the term (graphic arts, photos,
films, video) – become the object of research”. Taking pictures indoors and outdoors, of things and of
people, serves as a living memory of experiences and lets people both observe the field with greater precision
and attention (Pink 2004) and possibly discover – afterwards in the silence of the laboratory – a number of
details that they may not have seen at first. In addition, some photos are used to support and illustrate arguments
made during the course of the analysis (McGrath, 1989). However, as Becker was careful to recall (1979), photography
analysis may enable researchers to develop preliminary conceptualization but cannot be the sole basis
for an in-depth interpretation of the phenomenon in question, especially where this involves experienced
photographers highlighting aesthetic dimensions based on observation alone, an approach that runs the risk of
producing certain bias effects (Fetterman, 1989, p. 85).
Other techniques also mobilized by ethnomarketing approaches include living narratives, itinerary methods and
direct observation. It is worth reading, at this level, the collaborative text directed by Dion (2008).
of warehouses where builders pick up their supplies
(and because the chain has made the intentional
decision to leave its delivery vans parked out in front
of the store).
Interpretations leading to a re-enchantment
of consumption
In a commercial and consumer environment,
interpretation can also mean ways of expressing what
is sacred, things that can be either tangible or intangible,
time and places, gods, prophets and followers or
even dogma, beliefs, rituals and sacrifices. A whole
panoply of themes deals with this concept of the reenchantment
of consumption (Firat and Venkatesh,
1995). The particular focus here is on consumption
and shopping rituals. For Radcliffe-Brown (1952,
p. 314), a ritual is “a set of positive and negative
observances, abstentions and actions generated by
religion or religious cult... a ritual relationship exists
any time that a society forces its members to adopt a
particular attitude toward an object, one leading to an
expression of respect within a traditional mode of
behaving toward this object”. For Bouvier (2002),
this is because the commercial sector is the one that
best understands the potential usefulness of “modern
rituals” like religious, national, seasonal or social
celebrations, which might be festive, expiatory or
commemorative in nature, are often detached from
their original meanings and can therefore quite easily
be associated with today’s symbolic commercial strategies.
One example is Christmas (Van Gennep,
1934; Perrot, 2000) and the iconic Santa Claus figure
that Coca-Cola redefined in the 1930s. Other
examples include marriage lists, invented in France
by a tableware Paris retailer, or Halloween, the adaptation
of an old Celtic ritual.
The study of rituals is linked to the study of
modes by means of which myths are produced
(Dumézil, 1939). Myths tend to be actualized and
more or less guaranteed by a whole set of rituals and
ceremonies that serve to periodically regenerate their
efficiency. More generally, myths are tantamount to
words and communications systems. However, as
determined by Barthes (1957), only certain words
qualify. Words are defined less by the object of their
message than by the way they are disseminated.
Myths are seminal narratives that members of a
society transmit from generation to generation.
Events, stories or narratives are all singular at the
beginning and only become a myth under two conditions.
First, they must be semantically and formally
compatible with the myths of the population in question.
Second, their individual origins must be forgotten,
even erased, for a general history to be born.
Olivier Badot, Christophe Carrier, Bernard Cova, Dominique Desjeux, Marc Filser104
This perspective offers a theoretical way of enriching
the traditional analytical frameworks applicable
in purchasers’ decision-making processes, driven
by the choice of an isolated product rather than by
the influence of the consumption system with which
the product is connected. Note that the idea that
myths govern the consumption of food products,
notably as explored by Kaufmann (2005), has roots
in products’ articulation in a symbolic system that
can only be correctly ascertained via information
processing models highlighting the product’s decomposition
into a series of attributes.
MANAGERIAL APPLICATIONS
OF ETHNOMARKETING
Ethnomarketing’s managerial applications seem
to materialize both at the level of the marketing
efforts of the companies pursuing this course of
action and more generally at the level of their organization
and culture. Three initial paths in this area
include:
– Broadening the toolbox of marketing investigation
methods to understand the positions that
people have experienced and identify requisite
differentiation levers;
– Helping to construct an extra-functional product
supply system geared toward consumers’
need for hedonistic gratification;
– Building the “customer orientation” of the company
as a whole.
Expanding the toolbox of marketing research
One of ethnomarketing’s main contributions is to
enable analysis of the positions, in Pontier’s sense of
this term (1986), that actors take toward customers’
interactions with all the elements of the product offer
found at a particular point-of-sale, whether or not
such positions are what the managers responsible for
the chain’s strategic choices would like to see.
The Contribution of Ethnology to Research in Consumer and Shopper Behavior: toward Ethnomarketing 105
Ethnomarketing’s contribution to investigatory
methodology in marketing is that it generally applies
to actors and retailers’ identification of the requisite
levers of differentiation. As demonstrated by Badot
and Cova (1992), in a highly competitive environment,
there is little chance that traditional investigation
methods (like checkout counter surveys or semidirective
interviews) can help companies to identify
the requisite levers of differentiation enabling them
to achieve significant competitive advantage. Many
observers sense that the basis for ethnomarketing is
the study of “weak signals”, i.e., signals referring to
themes that may be less frequent but which can be
crossed with findings obtained via other data compilation
techniques, including theories, narratives or peripheral
practices. The detection of weak signals,
allied with triangulation approaches, enables analysis
of those potentialities (consumer attitudes and practices
signalling threatening or opportunistic paths)
and scansions (notably between attitudes and behavior)
that make it easier to ascertain the positions that
people have taken and, potentially, generate greater
competitive advantage (See Frame 3).
Developing a hedonistic business proposition
With the development of experiential approaches to
consumption and marketing, companies expect marketing
research to provide keys enabling them to
construct the non-functional and hedonistic dimension
of a company’s product offer. Marketers are
interested in different kinds of consumption and
shopping experiences, which can include leisure
experiences like an evening in a Guinness pub or a
cruise; tourism experiences like a weekend in Rome or
trekking in the Himalayas; sporting experiences like a
football match or Formula One motor race; artistic
and cultural experiences like visits to a museum or
exhibition; entertainment experiences like a rock
concert or play, etc. For this type of product offer,
what consumers are seeking first and foremost is
enjoyment (Pine and Gilmore, 1999). Marketing tries
to identify and then implement all possible resources
to help consumers access the experience (Carù and
Cova, 2007). Toward this end, there is a need to
know consumers’ feelings and internal states during
the experience and determine what facilitates or
impedes their access to enjoyment i.e., their experiential
folk models. Hence, the development of socalled
complete ethnographic approaches based on
consumers and researchers’ co-immersion in these
experiences, and involving data that are both prereflexive
(observation) and reflexive (introspection).
These broader approaches allow companies to
work on elements of their product offer that are fairly
unusual yet very important to the consumer. As
demonstrated in an ethnomarketing study of a classical
music concert, the main obstacle to enjoyment can be
all of the rituals that are inherent to a particular kind of
experience. Interestingly enough, the same study
highlighted the crucial role that conductors play in an
audience’s ability to access enjoyment (Carù and
Cova, 2003). In the case of website-related virtual
experiences, ethnomarketing studies have demonstrated
that these sites’ design is based far too often on
strategies intended to excite and stimulate consumers.
Such strategies bring consumers to a relatively
simple level of pleasure without allowing them to
access higher levels. To achieve this, the websites
would have to develop greater familiarity by mobilizing
benchmarks with which the consumer is familiar.
In both cases, ethnomarketing works on consumers’
competencies, and specifically on ways that
these can be enhanced.
A non-superficial customer orientation
As exemplified by the catalogue sale application of
ethnomarketing by a French office equipment company,
this approach seems – above and beyond its
marketing dimension – to have a clear impact on
firms’ organizational behavior and culture. In the
company in question, the fact that for a period of two
years nearly all staff members in all departments
used ethnomarketing methods on their customers
(observations, interviews, wardrobe analysis, semiology
of premises, photos, etc.) seems to have:
– had a major cultural impact on the company’s
back office (“We are much sharper now when
talking about the client,” says the head of sales),
which has improved in terms of listening to
front-office services; developed a culture of
weak signals; changed its vocabulary (i.e., packages
versus single items); and modified a commercial
culture that used to be driven by a
“push” logic alone;
Olivier Badot, Christophe Carrier, Bernard Cova, Dominique Desjeux, Marc Filser106
– enabled greater mixing between departments:
organization of joint projects; sentiment of
having a shared (customer) culture; less asymmetry
in terms of departmental legitimacy; less
symbolic domination by some departments
(notably logistics); greater networking between
departments responsible for managing the product
offer or customer relationship;
– facilitated the application of previously unknown
actions within the company (i.e., customer-oriented
discovery sessions for new and
long-standing employees) and made marketing
action-related decision making more fluid (with
certain departments that operate at a very upstream
level now providing direct suggestions
concerning marketing actions).
The outcomes confirmed the so-called “fit” theories
formulated notably by Galbraith et al. (1993),
according to which injecting customer expertise into a
company will de facto bring about an organizational
reconfiguration toward forms that are more agile and
able to interpret the environment. Of course, the
long-term efficiency of such a reconfiguration
depends on managers’ ability to assume and propagate
it with a relativistic mindset.
Frame 3. – Broadening the toolbox of marketing surveys in a shopping mall
It is no surprise that France’s leading promoter and operator of shopping malls has broadened its panoply of
marketing tools to include ethnomarketing (along with geo-marketing, quantitative polling and qualitative
image analysis). For the past decade, this sector has been subject to a great deal of competitive pressure: a growing
trend toward fun shopping within malls; the mutation of urban redevelopment zones into retail parks; and
the expansion and proliferation of “category killers”. The end result is that this business is no longer as propertyoriented
as it once was (driven by a financial and fixed asset logic) and increasingly adopts a marketing perspective
(Dupuis et al., 2002).
In this context, shopping malls’ use of ethnomarketing seems to have:
– Improved their marketing coherence, thus their attractiveness and visitor numbers, since it has helped them to
achieve a more effective and credible insertion into their local competitive space as well as greater embeddedness
in the local imaginary. This increased coherency has often been used to service a narrative that resituates
the mall within a long forgotten, but highly stimulating, local mythology;
– Refine the malls’ shopping mix, thus the profitability of the commercial space, through a better distribution of
chains and points-of-sale. The “experiential understanding” embodied in window shoppers’ itineraries has made
it possible both to avoid the kinds of localization practices that prioritize rental charges (which explains the trend
toward an excessive concentration of more attractive and lucrative chains on the hot spots that receive more visitors),
and to increase purchasing opportunities, average shopping basket sizes and profitability. It has, for
example, been observed that zoning regulations that are too strict in sectorial terms (concentrating similar product
categories around a limited number of points-of-sale) reinforces routine purchases and increases the
number of people visiting peripheral zones and therefore creates additional sales, notably of high-margin
impulse goods;
– The emergence in firms of a culture of ethnomarketing and more generally of “window-shopping”. Most
actions and gestures come either with a strong financial connotation (relationship to the chain based more on
transactions than on a collective marketing construct) or with a relatively restrictive architectural orientation that
sometimes even runs contrary to a strictly commercial logic (example of a mall where window shoppers are
channeled by dotted lines on the ground that are redolent highways, and where people scrupulously avoid walking
on the wrong side of the road).
The Contribution of Ethnology to Research in Consumer and Shopper Behavior: toward Ethnomarketing 107
CONCLUSION AND PERSPECTIVES
From this attempt to summarize social sciences’
contribution to research into consumer, shopper and
retailer behavior, what has become apparent is the
significant role played by the observation of practices
and material objects (contribution of ethnology);
social interactions; purchasing decisions construed as a
collective process (contribution of organizational
sociology); and analysis of the clues, imaginary and
symbolism at work when people purchase and use
products (contribution of anthropology). This perspective
has visibly shifted the focus of some marketing
research from what is in people’s minds to what is in
their shops and households. The point here is more a
dynamic analysis of consumption and shopping processes
than a study of the attitudinal phenomena that
are expected to precede a purchase and which should
be decoded via protocols with roots in cognitive psychology.
More generally – and it is here that the link
with sociology arises – consumption and shopping
become possible ways of analyzing the whole of
society in this case (Miller, 2008) and not just subfields
of aggregate purchasing behavior. In a sense, it is
the entire role of marketing that is being revisited
(Cova and Cova, 2001).
The semiological dimension of ethnomarketing
analysis appears as a unidirectional process, i.e., one
produced by the researcher alone. In this sense, it
comes with a serious risk of over-interpretation since it
is exempt from any formal external validation, (even a
quantitative one). Whether this involves validation
based on a declarative study of shoppers and consumers’
attitudes and behavior, validation involving a
more systematic analysis of decision makers’ intentions,
comparative analysis detailing the persuasive
mechanisms that rival operatives use or even experimental
analysis (McQuarrie and Mick, 1999), such
an approach leads to over-interpretation (Miller,
1998, p. 36) and “over-surprise” i.e., an excessive
propensity to treat elements that can only be fortuitous
as something significant (Eco, 1992), thus to
assign disparate and fortuitous elements to an interpretive
superstructure that often has universal ambitions.
As asserted by Lahire (2005), photos may seem
to show everything, but in actual fact they say
nothing to us and never talk about themselves. Yet,
even if there are many different ways of receiving a
text, the fact remains that icons are semantically
much more constraining than discourse. This limitation
is especially strong when ethnomarketing researchers
follow an approach that relies neither on the formalist
studies of narrative semioticians (notably Chomsky,
Propp, Todorov, Greimas, Barthes, Genette) or on
studies by territorial semioticians (i.e., Lévi-Strauss,
Lynch, Barthes, Holston,) or on semiotics studies
applied to marketing (including, in France, works by
Floch, Hetzel and Heilbrunn).
In conclusion, we note that the North American
branch of ethnomarketing research – and more generally,
the ethnology of proximity and consumption –
seems to be increasingly oriented toward the use of
“videography” as a means of data compilation, and
toward a restitution of research in the form of films
(Belk and Kozinets, 2005; Dion, 2007). A recent
issue of the magazine Consumption Markets and
Culture (Vol. 8, n° 3, September 2005) focused on
the videography of consumption. The current trend in
ethnomarketing is toward video-diaries (Sunderland
and Denny, 2007) that, like all introspective narratives,
adhere to the principle that consumers want to
talk about things and about themselves, and that they
possess the technological competencies to do this
using video material. The strength of ethnomarketing
today appears to be its ability to transition from a
retrospective narrative that a researcher gathers in the
form of interviews to an introspective narrative that
can be produced, formalized and diffused by consumers
in the shape of text-diaries, audio-diaries or
video-diaries (Patterson, 2005). This decentered
practice, which turns consumers into active producers
of the narrative of their experiences, is based on
the rise of so-called reflexive or resistant individuals
(Holt, 2002; Bauhain-Roux, 2007) – a research axis
that has started to emerge within CCT. What remains is
that ethnomarketing appears to have opened doors to
other forms of pollination – notably in conjunction
with the artistic world.
Olivier Badot, Christophe Carrier, Bernard Cova, Dominique Desjeux, Marc Filser108
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