Ethnography & The Customer: Building a Compelling Brand

This post is dedicated to Molly Miller, my soon to be former VP of Customer Discovery & Innovation,  whose passion for uncovering the needs of customers and developing innovations that meet those needs is unmatched.

For those of you that don't know what ethnography is, its the act of immersing yourself in the customer's context and understand them from their perspective.  Companies which do great ethnography develop a 360 view of their customers...not just the products they use or their attitudes or their usage patterns for instance but everything.   Great ethnography yields great insights and when linked up to the innovation pipeline of a company, yields great monetary value as well. And while ethnographic techniques take longer than traditional market research methods, IMHO they yield superior insights that when coupled with quantitative analysis really works!

Back in 2008, LexisNexis started its customer ethnography efforts.  But it was just a glimmer in Molly Miller's eye at that point.  Today the team is a powerhouse that actually marries Customer Advocacy with the Customer Experience:

This notion of defining an organization that addresses lifecycle issues of customers, while not new is rarely implemented well. The LexisNexis CDI team kills it with dedicated teams for each stage in the process and supported by a killer operations team.

In this case, ethnography is a foundational building block for crafting a great customer experience, which is key to building a compelling brand. In fact, customer experience builds brand perception when you:

1. Take the time to understand why customers should beleive in you
2. Know your customer touch points
3. Understand what elements of the experience reinforce the brand propositon
4. Make sure the promise of the brand is reinforced by the customer experience.

While brand guidelines, its visuals and the voice your organization uses matter, its the customer experience and its touch points with the customer that truly drives brand value.  It has to include everything from the initial marketing touch, sales experience, product usage, support and follow up communications from a brand. And to optimize it? It all begins with ethnography.