“El traje nuevo del empresario”: el uso de la etnografía en la investigación de mercados

Abstract

In the last ten years, ethnography has consolidated itself as a central service in the portfolio of many market research companies in Colombia that offer their clients consumer ethnographies. The objective of this article is to describe and analyze how market research professionals understand and use ethnography. Methodology: The research that led to this article involved several phases. Initially, we identified the institutions that offer consumer ethnographies in Colombia. This was followed by an analysis of the service portfolios of these institutions, as well as an analysis of the discourse with which they offer their services, particularly in terms of ethnographic studies. Finally, more than twenty interviews were conducted with market research professionals in Bogotá, Cali and Medellín, all with experience in carrying out consumer ethnographies. Conclusions: Despite the fact that professionals in this field have recently opened up spaces for debate in academia, in Colombia, the process of integrating the ethnographic method into market research companies has not been analyzed in depth. An example of this is that at the XVII Congress of Anthropology in Colombia in 2019, for the first time, there were four tables devoted to anthropology applied to consumption, markets, industry, and business. Originality: These spaces are ideal for discussing the postulates and findings of this article, especially our conclusion that, in the field of market research, the discourse of anthropology is used and instrumentalised to endow consumer ethnographies with academic and scientific legitimacy, even though its methodological practices and assumptions tend to be underestimated.

Keywords

• business anthropology
• consumer ethnographies
• consumption studies
• ethnography
• market research
• marketing