Ethnography Takes Off

When a new on-board service needs testing for passenger reaction, companies traditionally turn to the classical market-research mainstay, the focus group. Today, however, alternative techniques offer deeper insights that can inform the product development team like never before. Ethnographic research - somewhat new to marketers but as old as the science of anthropology - is increasingly being used to provide new information about passenger's behaviors.

Using the anthropologist's tool kit of methods and theories, ethnographers are giving airlines and catering firms an inside look at the cultural trends, attitudes, and lifestyle factors that influence passenger decisions about everything from travel purchasing to coffee consumption, duty free shopping or airport interactions. 

Such research can give the firms an advantage in learning not just what passengers want, but what they will want, says Peter Zahnd, CEO at SolutionSync, a Swiss-based company specialized in corporate ethnography. "Ethnography - participant observation - is a way to get up close and personal with travelers", he says. "As the cycle time for new product development goes down and its cost goes up, and as competition becomes fiercer, airlines and food service companies are trying to figure out the context of use for new products and services", he says.

Whereas focus groups often work in artificial settings for short periods, ethnography situates passengers within the larger social and cultural context. Ethnography looks not for opinions but for a 360-degree understanding of how a product or service might resonate with the passenger's travel journeys from the passenger's view point, and not from a business perspective.

For instance a major airline caterer conducted a study for a new meal concept. Using a sample of 15 travelers from different markets, corporate ethnographs accompagnied business travelers on their journeys, conducting interviews aboard planes and trains, and video taped service processes. The researchers asked passengers and crew to respond to questions such as "When you smell food being prepared in the galley, what images come to mind?" by creating a journal of sketches, images and photos passengers took themselves or ones they teared out of magazines - that came to mind.

What emerged was a passenger picture traveling on a journey as a "transformative experience", says Zahnd.

"Those learnings - the emotional, cultural, symbolic meanings - are quite powerful". They also validated the airline's working concept for a streamlined on-board process and improved service.

The real power of participant observation, however, lies at the front end of product development. "Part of the idea of going into the airplane, dining car or boat restaurant or wherever it is that a product is important, is that you're discovering from the passenger what the meaningful categories are in the context. It also reveals the 'Why?', why do they do what they do?" explains Michael Raasch, Innovation Director at LSG Sky Chefs.

Similar research helped a major airport catering company to double sales. The company discovered that their traditional approach to new product and service development was penny profit driven and not customer focused. The ethnographic research helped to make the product offering and marketing messages more appropriate for the traveler. Whithin two weeks sales were up 50% and after one year sales had evened out at more than double their previous year's level.

Why is an ethnographic approach different?

Ethnography differs from other qualitative research because it seeks to discover reality from the passenger's perspective. "It's not about how we see the passengers and interpret their behavior, but how the passenger sees the airline and the airline's products", says Peter Lindenmann, a researcher.

Corporate Ethnography studies focused questions such as:

• What are the current practices around our product or service?
• What innovations and improvements can we make to our products?
• How is our product seen as performing?
• What are the impact of cultures and regional differentiations on how our product is used?
• Are there any emerging trends that we need to investigate?
• How do people perceive what we're trying to provide?

All this analysis is done from the passenger's perspective so to gain a stronger understanding of what is it like to be our customer.

Participant observation has proved to be a beneficial tool for producing studies that provide accurate representation of the sub-culture of travelers.

editor@gate2board.com