Julia Curtiss | Approach | Understand how customers actually think and behave

I take an ethnographic approach to research. I meet customers in their natural environments, such as their homes or workplaces, to understand how they actually think and behave. Ethnographic principles – borrowed from anthropology – are highly effective in revealing insights into how current and potential customers make decisions, use products, experience services, and perceive brands.

“You have to see people with the product at the very moment they’re using it … What consumers say and remember, and what they actually do, are often two totally different things.”†

Observation and in-depth interview are the broad methods commonly associated with an ethnographic approach. I carefully customize the field research methods to the specific industry and audience in order to achieve the project’s goal.

The results: vivid descriptions in words, images, and frameworks that are both relevant and applicable.

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† Bill Abrams, Housecalls. “Consumer Rituals of the Suburban Tribe,” The New York Times Magazine, January 13, 2002.

An immersion

After Lund Food Holdings purchased Byerly’s in 1997, the premier Twin Cities grocery store wanted to better define the differences between these two upscale supermarket brands. As the lead researcher on this project at Yamamoto Moss, I immersed myself in the world of the Lund’s and Byerly’s customer. In the process we challenged the client’s perceptions of their customers and revealed key ways for the company to redefine its brand and better meet the needs of shoppers.

First, I spent time observing shoppers at checkouts, in parking lots, and as they interacted with each other and the grocery store itself – both at Lund’s and Byerly’s and at their competitors. Then I conducted small-group discussions in stores with both brand loyalists and occasional shoppers, building upon previous observations. Finally, I selected participants from these groups and accompanied them and their families while shopping at the grocery store to confirm and contrast the information I had previously seen and heard.

Although the details vary to meet each client’s needs, it is through this complete immersion and direct customer contact that I consistently deliver deep and meaningful findings.