The art of using ethnography

Abstract

In January 2014, approximately 60 Indian academics and business people gathered in Delhi for a one-day seminar on the art of using ethnography . I coconducted the seminar with Guliz Ger, a Turkish colleague with whom I have worked on a number of research projects over the past 20 years . I describe my portion of the workshop here and Guliz is doing the same for her portion . We began with an ethnographic case study by Procter & Gamble’s Gillette in seeking to broaden its initially small market share among India’s poor and rural men . Through a combination of in-home visits, observations, shop-alongs, depth interviews and test shaves, the company learned that – unlike North Americans, who shave daily in front of a wall mirror and wash basin with hot and cold running water – most rural and poor Indian men shave every few days in poor light with a hand-held mirror and a cup of cold water using the 100-yearold technology of a safety razor in which the handle screws to hold a double-edged blade . The result was lots of nicks and cuts . Gillette’s engineers designed an inexpensive razor with three moving parts and a large comb to prevent nicks . The result was a phenomenal 50% market share within six months of introduction in 2010 . It is also Indian-made and sold in India’s hundreds of thousands of small shops CONFERENCE NOTES