What we do

Understanding

‘We want to understand our customers better.’

Understanding what the customer really thinks is vital. At *UP There, Everywhere, we are using much less artificial approaches in building true and deep customer understanding by incorporating anthropology.

We have found that observing people and understanding why they do what they do, and what they could do next, is a far better approach than many traditional research methods.

Dr. Katarina Graffman leads us in this area.

Incorporating Anthropology

It is a well-known fact that humans often do not do what they say. Sometimes they do not even express what they really mean but talk in metaphors. Anthropology (and its method, ethnography) can look beyond the metaphors, and make the difference between depth and superficiality.

We are not talking about the buzz-word version of ethnography, which is currently prevailing in business, as well as in market research, where it has become a trend to do ethnography. We are talking about applied science, here.

The existing varieties are manifold: check out a supermarket, go hunting for the cool; the in-crowd, observe street life and more. Ethnography is often reduced to a combination of descriptive and observational investigations, or alternatively, a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods. To separate methodology from theory and methods from the conceptual framework, which is their base, will reduce ethnography to a limited number of methodological exercises that demand neither education, technical competence nor training.

Anthropology really means to participate in parts of the daily life of a selected group of people. It is about seeing people express their basic needs, their intuitive behaviour. To study a limited selection of people representing the target group and to interpret the metaphors these people express with reference to basic human needs rather than articulated desires (which we know change in pace with fashion and trends). To understand that human needs transgress cultural borders and that the dominant current cultures of communication and dwelling appear to work happily with other forms of culture; national, regional and religious as well as different subcultures.

Today, anthropology has reached the agenda of business.

Contact us about Understanding.