Contributions of Anthropology to Marketing Research: Reflections on the field and future trends

RESUME

Anthropology for Marketing Research in Venezuela, is a still underdeveloped field, paradigms and perceptions related to our areas of application are directly related to the anthropological study of "bones" as we are called by the recruiters in human resources. Currently, in Venezuela there are only a few anthropologists who have spent almost a decade to study consumer behavior and the organizations in the country. The future development of business anthropology in Venezuela will involve a tremendous amount of research to increase the awareness of the business anthropology, to enlarge the scope of our research areas and the scope of the implications.

INTRODUCTION

 This article is a set of reflections and the collection of professional experiences gather by the authors in the implementation of business anthropology in Venezuela. Business anthropology in Venezuela begins to take its first steps during the 1990s with studies of organizational culture in the public sector, before that period most scholars such as sociologists, civil engineers, and administrators were involved as consultants and developing very specific and minor studies. Most of these were, came from academic background with limited ethnographical experience, and their main focus was associated to give explanations on the functioning of the organizational structures in the public sector, specifically in enterprises of strategic management in the regulation of electric aspects of the country.

     We decided to open new doors and developed new challenges doing more anthropological research with the objective to apply changes in the private sector, reasons such as creating a participatory inclusion of the anthropology outside the classroom was our main motivation. Formally, business anthropology was born in Venezuela with the first development of the co-author Miguel Palau’s undergraduate thesis Knowledge-oriented Specific Process of Decision-Making in Business Fields and their influences on managerial decision-making. Originally, the research work title for her anthropology degree was designed towards the study of consumer behavior, or towards the development of new products or product usability. However due to unpredictable certain elements of resistance within the institution the development of the original study was precluded because the committee perceived that was not an expert in the field, who could help to collaborate with the development of the subject.

    These internal flows of resistance to innovation and the changes more than traditional research topics in Anthropology in our country (social, linguistic, indigenous and physical anthropology), had contributed to create barriers for this type of research. Trough denials contributed directly and indirectly to the lack of knowledge of the scope of the certain anthropological trends, the application of ethnographical tools for collecting information, and therefore to the application of importance of findings in the business. Worst of all, this currents had created a distorted image of the credibility of anthropology in Venezuela especially in the business sector where we are still considered “professionals with no skills to develop management or research positions in the private sector”.

   Despite all this, and assuming the risk of such resistance, we set out to continue the creation of this thesis giving a purely anthropological approach to the study of decision-making processes and make their results on the recommendation of management models of greater effectiveness, performance, and decrease of the bureaucracy for the resolution of administrative tasks. And while the results were very positive, the absence of the rule of gold a year in the field, genre great disputes in relation to the time shared with managers of one of the most important organizations in the country.

   As the first argument in the country on the theme, we found multiple barriers, but also solutions to the development of the same. The main of them was to get a group of senior managers willing to be convinced of letting me take their spaces for apply ethnographic method, including structured interviews, take photographs and field notes during important meetings.   

    Fortunately, we had the opportunity to those days of contact to a group of professionals in the United States, Brazil, Europe and convinced with personal visits and email contact (Ann T. Jordan, Ken Erickson, Mats Alvesson, Elizabeth Briody, Marietta Baba, Mary Meyer, James Dean, Patricia Marquez, Ramon Piñango, Omar Perez, among others specialists) which through their experiences, gave me functional recommendations for the methodological design development.  In the end showed progress in achieving our goal we were granted with the opportunity to do our field work in time-saving per year due to resistance of managers to share time with an “anthropologist”, and what the question of what is that for? In some sense when you work so close with human beings in the sector they prejudge you as you were part of the company and you are evaluating them. Going back to the history, we could not apply the rule of gold of a year of fieldwork, which with our study was broken for reasons relating to the valuation of informants and jealous available time, but there were not implications in the gathered information and the rigorous of the research process and less in the delivering of results and recommendations.

  The results of this research showed that in a large number of cases, routine managerial decision-making are directly influenced by individual values, and they lead to procedural delays characteristic of bureaucracy in Venezuela. Reason by which processes happens late and proportional scale vertical structures sometimes might have medium of low performance. The goal of the research been met fully, beyond a great contribution to business anthropology of the country, being applied results allowed to build managerial models promoting individual capacities of each manager based on their skills.

   After this huge struggle, and with my bachelor degree in hand as an anthropologist just graduated with much desire to apply my knowledge and continue to grow, it was not 5 years later and after multiple rejections (over a thousand) in interviews to become a formal employee within large, medium and small local enterprises that a coupled with the rise of anthropological tools needed especially in the field of market research and consumer behavior when becomes mildly necessary my recruitment as anthropologists in the country.

  The "need" for anthropologists from these companies in Venezuela, it should be noted, not born within themselves or because someone was specifically looking, but from knowledge of some member of senior management which requires deep methodologies, or had read a study made in a head quarter around the world. Usually these ethnographical and outsider studies that reply over our region intended to determining characteristics specific of their target consumers and this theme in specific speak later. In our experience certain divisional requirements outside of the country highlighted the importance of mainstreaming of anthropologists to the granting of knowledge deepest of urban culture, consumption, identification of trends, consumer behavior, and interestingly those historical subjects related to stage political, cultural and social Venezuelan in previous years behavior-related topics and how companies under constant dynamics behaved. In one case we were hired as consultants just because traditional research methodologies could not give answers to the marketing team for the development of a new product (a portable juice pack) specially targeted for kids.

ANTHROPOLOGY, THE CURRENT SCENARIO

     Currently, and after many experiences learning along with my mentor, we can note that in Venezuela business anthropology is at a stage where anthropologists are hired by specific studies mostly as contracted. Still few or non-existent engagements in the private sector in our country still do so.  Our organizations research managers are mostly selected by developing skills in the numerical field alone (engineers, economist, administrators), and quantitative, syndicated studies experienced. Numerical representation is always needed for any final executive and marketing decision, including sometimes calculation of return of investment for each study, the “give me a number paradigm” is the rule of the thumb.  There are still no cycles for mix research (quantitative and qualitative) and the anthropological knowledge of consumer, it is still considered a set of qualitative tools that but not necessarily are representative of the “needs” over the majority of the Venezuelan population.  

  So also is worth emphasizing that qualitative type, particularly research of an ethnographic nature studies are developed, not rarely, as a mere curiosity of the novelty that seems to be this type of study, along being considered as "cheap" in strictly economic terms to the company who may need. Say, beyond the concern about the deepening knowledge of the subjects studied, we think of this type of study as a relatively inexpensive approach versus the cost of working with "large numbers".

  On the other part, the legal uncertainty, plight of urban violence and the situation of transition to a socialist economy, model latter although it can be more discursive nature than real generated that certain companies to increase or maintain their volume and value sales depending on their business strategies and products in the country, is the case of organizations with focus on mass consumption (Dipak & Alberti, 1997).

 The popularization of revenue windfalls for reasons of high oil income has generated a high level of consumption above all in sectors of levels of poor, those who have benefited by jobs associated with the Venezuelan State bodies or by support of the so-called missions, which are not more that government programs associated with health, education in socio-economic levels more low, and the expansion of State as major employers in the country-dependent entities.

 Contradictorily, the restriction of operating elements for the private sector, as the purchase of US dollars for imports of raw materials has led many companies end up reducing your staff, due to the impossibility of manufacturing products locally and therefore stopping his local recruitment of staff with experience in the area of marketing research, as well as any other specialization, thus slowing the main motivations for growth and existence of capitalist enterprises investment capacity.

  In the worst cases of some organizations more effective and productive in the country especially those in which their channels of distribution have high penetration, have been and continue to be nationalized and expropriated being considered social utility from the State. In some cases, this has affected studies related with consumers behavior, causing a reduction in local designated budgets and in some cases deleted them as market research departments, led to dismissal of staff or significant number of studies projected over the years.

 Likewise, there is also a tendency among new professionals to refuse offers of research in the areas economically precarious by fear to be assaulted and risk of life that this represents, or maybe because social conditions, in which the State has generated a political campaign polarized where the population is limited to not speak of themselves, their customs, their features, their single day for fear that the investigator can be considered a suspect being politically associated with Government or opposition party becomes evident.

  Some international agencies that ask for our support usually are a little afraid about this scenario, and if you think that are hard for you, can you imagine that we have dynamic conditions that changes trough the day. Our recommendation is always the same, use a local guide or professional with experience that can help you trough your research objectives. This type of country scenarios, generate important obstacles to gather ethnographical data, and participants who choose to participate do so cautiously, increasing thus project implementation time and costs. But results are amazing and always are solutions that can be provided for professionals with local expertise.

  Without removing importance to the development of "anthropological" studies in the country, the vast majority of them at this time are being made by hands of staff associated with anthropology not as well by anthropologists. Sociologists, Engineers, Social Communicators with "ethnographic" and "ad nographers" who are passionate about what they think it may be important to collect on an in home visit and interpreting it as a major finding in the anthropological field, are the most frequent. Venezuela has a strong tradition of market research which is transmitted from generation to generation and focuses on the quantitative research performing the same studies, the same analysis year after year. Some managers within the area of research who on his vision as trained researchers trained in the path are those who give recommendations to the high management marketing managers or high level executives in the commercial area, for which they work taking into account only those who can give results for the organization.

  

  Over the years we have heard expressions such as: "give me a number “or "should be a greater number of cases", "is too long to read a study case, we should better synthesize a job field of 3 or 8 months in only one power point slide". There are some few expressions on great ignorance of the scope of anthropology as a tool of research within organizations, in terms of knowledge vs. practicality. And is that ultimately, anthropologist not only this work composed the work itself, that is already quite hard about the implications on design method, execution impeccably study in question times and costs so that the organization feels pleased, and that generate credibility of results under a social scene as explained you previously. There is also an important element in the generation of a project and is basically is know how to communicate it, grant finds more beyond so explicit and the descriptive, grant specificity on the questions of those managers who seek answers, and generate in-depth knowledge making interconnections with other studies with other findings to generate new ways to analyze same phenomenon.

    Anthropological research in our experience sometimes for certain audience could not interest in terms of quality of method that is misunderstood and our ethical mission is to explain the reaches and cover expectations with the planning that’s its been done previously with clear and well delimited research objectives, i.e.  we were invited by the Manager of a marketing product unit to undertake a series of observations on social programs in schools for low socio economical level´s children with the objective to understand how anthropologist could contribute inside the organization. We had the opportunity to simply sit in different scenarios with a pencil and a notebook and performed observations not while the implementation of the promoter within the program. We also made a serial of small  non structured interviews trough the teachers while they watched the official mascot sang children's songs children not recognized the tune because it cannot have been updated in the last 10 years; its official that a kid ten years ago has not the same interest as the ones of this times. Details like these even if they were not the main finding, but also we discovered that the teachers were very pleased to have support within their educational role. Children were happy and highly motivated having educational activities outside of the classroom class involving collective participation and learning while observing and played (a method poorly used in Venezuela after 50 years of educational programs, and in a world ruled by the web and the interaction it’s important). We also saw certain features of the programmed were not well captured by larger adolescents, who were indifferent to a program that was designed for another younger audience. More revealing is that of gift kit, products were taken home as a gift to his brothers or sisters and information not only remained in school but children retransmitted it to their parents and friends.

 Indeed we could add that within our field and consultancy work experiences in general in this area there have been "insights" or findings (this word can generate controversy or change in an organization or other significance and structured as a different model), which have allowed us to companies for the production of new products and innovations of market, issue which is of vital importance and attractiveness for consumers especially which represent a great weight in Venezuela, youth-oriented.

  Thus we can testify that anthropology has a scope in which always we can not only provide answers to questions from many members of the Organization, but what I think is more important, is the power to generate more questions and return to the field with new set of mind that can be answered in a continuous cycle and more importantly combining multidisciplinary teams to see different point of views over a same phenomenon.

TREND AREAS OF BUSINESS ANTHROPOLOGY IN VENEZUELA

 We read that business anthropology usually is subdivided by area of application, in some cases according to the north US tradition, and others in the UK school of anthropology, in either of the two here place which could be a local experience and we'll give a brief explanation of what composed each of them. We stress that these classifications are integration in a complex process that involves the role of the researcher within private organizations.

     Linguistic applied to marketing research: we think that it is one of the areas most critic and in development in our country. The constant search for language assessment techniques to define product concepts and their contents (reasons to believe) which possess more attractive and are more akin to the language used by consumers is one of the primary needs especially in subsidiaries as in Latin America. The reasons are many, but basically every culture has a set of linguistic codes differentiated, and in our country being a divisional often requirement, the application operation and the sale of a particular product. The development of methodologies to is necessary and required not only produce more sales and participation in companies, but an orientation towards understanding the proper use and how consumers can give feedback to companies creating communication channels with answers and effective changes.

   Social Anthropology applied to marketing research: in this sense, the study of culture of the consumer and contexts of consumption in Venezuela becomes increasingly important. It should be noted that on many occasions methodological development involves observations not only at home but in scenarios where do consumers. It is of great interest to the organizations in our country, not just look at a specific time. In our experience, we mostly had the opportunity to work with housewives and related consumer goods, food, and in some cases with products and services.  These experiences have led us to understand which are the current needs, uses, desires and aspirations of those who we call consumer. Many of the results of the ethnographic application, has allowed us to improve communication campaigns, especially those that are transmitted by television, commercials and we can not set aside, findings suggesting important changes in new trends in development of products that are geared to the Venezuelan consumer.

   Archeology applied to marketing research, evaluation of artifacts: product design and development of concepts: in this sense, many shortcomings in the creation of products and local designs are displayed. Venezuela being a purely importer of products of any order, you need a lot of professionals geared towards this area. Currently, the development of products in our country, it’s related to costs. Decisions rarely include opinions related to the consumer, particularly as regards development, conceptualization and development of packaging. On the other hand, the concepts needed for development, we have seen that they are made inside of the same companies, leaving aside the observations in the field and search for opportunities related to packaging increased functionality especially regarding technology and mass consumption products.

  Physical anthropology, the world of perceptions visual as functional: ergonomics it is an area critical within organizations in Venezuela with local manufacturing and production, inclined not to the development of new products or the improvement of already existing but industrial safety and reduced maintenance of occupational accidents. It is a pity that in this sense, products related to consumer goods like aromas, fragrances, perfumes, design of packaging, colors associated with liquids and their contents have no locally previous studies that reveal the voice of the consumer in our country. Finally it strategies marketing who invade those spaces related to managerial strategies standardized and generated in the headquarters to be applied in other regions such as ours where we have needs often dissimilar to the country where they were developed.

  These classifications or so call them, are areas that have also been part of our experience in the implementation of business anthropology in Venezuela, and while these examples are very associated with the study of the behavior of the consumer or an anthropology of marketing and the anthropology of organizations, we can say that there are many opportunities to carry out studies in our country not yet developed, it is definitely a work in progress.

COMPROMISING AND ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS

     In spite of the barriers which damage externally our anthropological work, so also must weigh ignorance barriers that exist within organizations. In many opportunities, and interviews with human resources recruiters, we are optimistic and understand this situation as part of our labor. From to explain the etymology of the word anthropology in each interview or presentation to even include a note to point out that somehow my experience has been associated with my professional training and the meaning of being anthropologist.

  Finally, there are also large areas of opportunities in relation to vocational training in anthropology in our country. Related stigmatization of the anthropologist as purely academic scientific paradigms break is a work could be started from studies undergraduate to include matters related to the scope of the industrial, globalization and everything related to the applicability of our knowledge in the business world. This must be in addition to programs of direct participation within organizations to generate awareness of the importance of anthropology in Venezuela.

  Our responsibility as applied scientists or as researchers is a must, and play roles more participatory at every level if we are in Latin American to generate awareness of importance in our roles.  Anthropology should become a profession of demand and not a generation of unemployed professionals or maybe how is going trough Venezuela, dedicated and educated but working into the informal economy. It is the responsibility of anthropologists in our country and the world to show in an ethical manner the scope and importance of our approaches to the human being regardless of the area of application, and there continue to open up possibilities in other contexts. Indeed, it’s our responsibility not to help only the develop of the business world, its sometimes interpretive that way, but to create a better living pushing findings that can create innovation in product with less negative impact in our culture.

CONCLUSION

   In conclusion, in our experience we believe that the importance of mainstreaming of anthropology in the private and public sector would generate important contributions in implementing solutions in our society and beyond local, serious experience throughout Latin America. We believe that the coming is very good for anthropologists, especially those with skills in managerial areas and can especially which studies specialized (inside of anthropology or anthropologist with MBA´s) and apply them to the world of business. We have the firm conviction anthropology applied in future professionals will have to be some combination of both worlds, the theoretical and practical, supporting and giving new approaches in a dynamic world where "there is no time to read" but only to produce and to be successful.    

  Our future plans are focused on dissemination of information, intellectual production and contribution of the development of methodologies applied and its dissemination to generate interest on anthropology and especially telling students to future generations. Our work is to be mentors and indicate those other possibilities and interests in non-traditional fields of anthropology. Question is, which represents a great need in our country today, since more beyond political and social scenarios our current situation, which could be defined as "development" or "involution" also need knowledge specific behavior and culture in all its analysis focusing our efforts on areas related to the use of technology since it generates greater influence in the development of societies in the present and future.

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Copyright © 2012 Miguel Palau, Julio de Freitas Taylor

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