Ethnography and the Recession

Ethnography is a common tool used in marketing research. It generally involves observation of a person or group of people, in their natural environment. This got me to thinking that casual observations of what is going on around you are a form of ethnography. You can’t watch or read any news without hearing how bad the economy is. Putting my ethnography skills to work, I quickly picked up the signs of a bad economy. My approach is at least more entertaining than watching the news. Some examples….

• I can readily catch a cab right in front of my office – even on a rainy day. The last time this happened was during the dot com bust.
• The subway train I catch every morning is packed. This may at first appear contrary to my point. But once you realize they are now running 7 or 8 car trains instead of 10 car trains, you know why they are packed.
• The 3 people ahead of me at McDonalds (yes I do eat at McDonalds occasionally) all ordered off of the $1.00 value menu.
• Grocers are abandoning the “five for $5” or “ten for $10” sale ads and are advertising $1.00 prices.
• There’s no longer a line out the door at the organic salad place.
• Magazines are getting thinner due to less ads.
• There is a subtle trend toward smaller sample sizes for research projects.
  
  
  This list could go on and on. I’d be curious to hear what others have observed that points to a bad economy.

The Greening of Market Research

Like many businesses, we are doing our part to make our office more green. For example:

• We have eliminated plastic water bottles
• 100% of our employees use public transit to get to work
• We keep the office a few degrees cooler in the winter and a few degrees warmer in the summer
• We power down unused or seldom used equipment
• Everyone has a recycling container in their work space
• We have motion sensors in place to control lighting as people enter and leave rooms
  
  

But the biggest difference we have made is due to the fundamental change in the way much survey research is conducted. I did some math on the amount of paper a typical study used when we were still doing paper and pencil surveys. It came out to 11,450 sheets of paper, or almost 23 reams!

Once the industry moved to CATI systems, the paper usage shrunk to about 8 reams of paper per study. But with surveys moving online, and tab and report deliverables being mostly electronic, our average study now uses about 200 sheets of paper – or less than ½ of a ream. That’s a lot of trees saved!

Thank You Sandy Cooper!

Cooper Roberts Research just celebrated our 18th anniversary. It is hard to believe it was over 18 years ago that Sandy (Sanford) Cooper approached me about starting a new marketing research company. I first crossed paths with Sandy when I worked for a research company in Cincinnati. It was the early 1980s and he had recently left Burke, after a very successful career as their President and CEO. He had tired of being an “administrator” and wanted to get back to being a “researcher”. My company hired him on a short term contract to help improve the quality of their consumer research division. By the time he finished, most of the staff was people he recruited from Burke. I was one of only a handful of original employees that remained. Having become a business partner with him about ten years later, I have always found this somewhat ironic.

Sandy eventually went on to found Cooper Research, a very successful firm that specializes in healthcare research. I moved to the west coast with my original company. We stayed in touch over the years. In the later eighties, Sandy approached me about starting my own firm, with him as a founding partner. I would run the business; he would provide guidance and access to resources. Most importantly, he provided credibility. I rebuffed his suggestion for a number of years, but eventually I said yes. I think I would have probably started my own business anyway. But without Sandy, I probably would have waited another 5-10 years.

Sandy has been retired for sometime, but I know he stays informed about the industry. He even reads Merrill Dubrow’s blog. While I have thanked Sandy many times, I would like to use my public forum of this blog to once again say ‘thank you”. The first 18 years have been fantastic!

IHUT

Those of you who work in packaged goods and many other consumer household products probably know what an IHUT is. For those of you who do not, it stands for “In Home Use Test”. Basically, respondents are screened for study participation, then given product to use in their home. Afterwards, they complete a product evaluation survey. When I started in this business, it was just called a HUT, but it eventually morphed into an IHUT. I really don’t know why, and would love to hear from any one that knows the history behind the name change.

I mention IHUTs because the latest edition of our quarterly newsletter is all about IHUTs. If you didn’t receive a copy of the newsletter, the link is below:

http://www.cooper-roberts.com/newsletters/Q408_Newsletter.htm

Now I know many of you work in tech fields or primarily B2B products. You may think an IHUT doesn’t apply for you. But that is not completely true. We have used IHUTs to test video games, software, tech toys, computer devices, and small business products. Many of these frequently include an Ethnography component. And come to think about it, when we redirect a respondent to a test version of a web site, would that be considered an IHUT? After all, they are doing a new product evaluation.