Case Summary and Background
Hyundai was interested
in designing new automobiles that would specifically attract the Gen Y
audience, which had historically found the brand to be less-than interesting
both from a styling and a functionality standpoint.
What they did: They
designed and implemented a Touch The Market (TTM) Immersion, taking key
stakeholders and designers (both American and Korea) through a multi-day event
that include: 1) Experiential, metaphoric exercises around the concept design.
2) Automotive and non-automotive panel discussions. 3) Digital college campus
scavenger hunt. 4) Competitive ride and drives. 4) Group ethnographies.
Each participating team
captured these experiences in a competition culminating in a deliverable that
included new concept design and features.
The Impact is this TTM
approach enabled new vehicle designers to gain a range of highly stimulating
perspectives on and emotionally based learning’s about Gen Y, enabling the
design of two new vehicles slated for 2012 launch.
General Issues:
Issues it raises
includes
-
How does a company select one of the
customer centric innovation approaches among others- especially at the concept
stage?
-
How would we know this process developed
will really bring the right customer input?
-
How can we develop better vehicles, vehicles
that better fulfill the needs of the customer?
-
What is the true coax and how to get
true coax from customer?
-
How can we incorporate the Voice of the
customer?
-
Use and misuse of the ethnographic
approach to guiding product development and/or improvement.
-
Community-style development, adding
non-American participants.
Ethnographic approach
Goal and Problem Statement
In order to help the
team gain a deeper understanding of the glamour mom, Hyundai ventured out into
where these women lived: their homes, hearts, and world. Hyundai got to know
what mattered to them, so that Hyundai could make the Santa Fe more meaningful
to them. This type of ethnographic research takes into account that what people
say does not always jive with what they think and feel. So Hyundai watched,
listened, asked questions, and let people speak freely about their lives.
Ethnographic research allowed Hyundai to approach consumers as whole
individuals in order to create products that connect them to the Hyundai brand.
(Hyundai, 2007)
What Ethnography is
Ethnography is a
qualitative research method aimed to at exploring cultural phenomena which
reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural
group. (Geertz, C. 1973) (Philipsen, G. 1992).
It studies people, ethnic groups
and other ethnic formations, their ethnogenesis, composition, resettlement,
social welfare characteristics, as well as their material and spiritual culture.
In the biological sciences, this type of study might be called a "field
study" or a "case report", both of which are used as common
synonyms for "ethnography".(Boaz, Wolfe, 1997)
Pros, Cons Limitations of Ethnography (Katz, 2006)
Pros
-
A lot of information can be gained from
observing a customer’s environment first-hand
-
An oft-cited reason for using
ethnography is the belief that many “unspoken” needs exist that, when
discovered, can lead to enormous breakthrough innovations—real “game-changers”
in industry parlance. Some say that the only way to “hear” these unspoken needs
is through observation.
Cons & Limitations
-
Onsite interviewing is far more
expensive and time-consuming than central-location interviewing.
-
To create an affinity diagram and
prioritize customer needs, these needs must, at some point, be expressed verbally
-
At risk of stating the obvious, there
has to be something that is possible and practical to observe or ethnographic
research simply does not make sense
-
Observation can alter behavior—the so-called “Hawthorne effect.”
-
Many environments do not lend themselves
to easy recording.
-
Many respondents don’t want to be
questioned while they are concentrating on the task at hand
How Ethnography relates to course concepts
Concepts: "exploration space" &
"what job was this product hired to do?"
It is very difficult to
reach the place in our imagination where we can project to what might be or
what others might think—but it is important to do this in order to successfully
understand products, and what they need to deliver. Many people call this leap to more abstract lateral thinking
"thinking outside the box." It is intellectually challenging, but
vitally important. (Unger, Leybourne, 2012)
Sometimes it helps to
have some sort of tool to assist in framing our thinking in a different way,
and taking us away from out comfortable thought processes. The tool is known as exploration matrix.
It's use is explained in some detail in the Christensen reading
"Discovering what has been Discovered: What Job was your Product Hired to
Do?" (Christensen C.M. 1999)
Analysis
As innovators, Hyundai can apply ethnography to understand customer
needs, using the three steps process.
Step 1: By joining customer regular life activities and events using
ethnographic approach, observe and perhaps ask actual customers how they use
the product, and what their values and priorities for the product are.
Step 2: Observe and ascertain what else the customers could have used
using ethnographic approach, and what the advantage of other products. This
identifies the competition, and opens up different social and emotional
dimensions of the customer experience.
Step 3: Back to the lower left-hand corner of the Exploration Space
Matrix, because solutions and improvements need to be based on what is possible
Does Ethnography do
a good job at that goal?
The goal as stated is
to gain a deeper understanding of the glamour mom. The direct measure would be
how mid age woman customers are satisfied with the design of the car and what
are the sales figures of the car related to mid age women. There is a lot of
good feedback about how the TTM. However there are not too many information on
how much TTM is using ethnographic approach to gather requirements for ladies.
Also there are sales figure related model but not specific to woman. However
this seems to help based on the assumption that woman are not as good as man in
terms of expressing their true feelings verbally. This ethnographic approach on
woman implies sexism and may not be a politically correct measure.
Final Remarks: What would Kawasaki or Adams say?
Kawasaki: Build crappy
cars that fulfill all the customer fantasies (Safety can be tested in beta
testing).
Adams: Do not assume
you really know your customers until you have ethnographically approached them.
Reference
Boaz. N.T. & Wolfe,
L.D. (1997). Biological anthropology. Published by International Institute for
Human Evolutionary Research. Page 150.
Christensen C.M. (1999)
Innovation and the General Manager Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Irwin. Section 2.3 –
Discovering what has been Discovered: What Job was your Product hired to do?
(pp. 169-178)
Geertz, C. (1973).
Thick description: Toward an interpretive theory of culture. In The
Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (pp 3-30). New York: Basic Books,
Inc., Publishers
Hyundai. (2007).
"Hyundai uses 'Touch the Market' to Create Clarity in Project
Concepts". Visions Magazine, June 2007
Katz. (2006).
Viewpoint, The truth about ethnography. PDMA Visions MAgAzinE
Philipsen, G. (1992).
Speaking Culturally: Explorations in Social Communication. Albany, New York:
State University of New York Press
Unger, Leybourne. (2012). MET AD 741 Lecture Notes,
Boston University
Eric Tse, Richmond Hill, Toronto
Tse and Tse Consulting -Security, Identity Access Management, Identity Access Management Toronto, Solution Architect, Consulting
Linkedin ID: hfetse@hotmail.com
company email: tsetseconsulting@gmail.com
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Eric Tse, Richmond Hill, Toronto
Tse and Tse Consulting -Security, Identity Access Management, Identity Access Management Toronto, Solution Architect, Consulting
Linkedin ID: hfetse@hotmail.com
company email: tsetseconsulting@gmail.com
My Company Web Site http://tsetseconsulting.webs.com/index.html
Company Blog http://tsetseconsulting.wordpress.com/
Company Blog 1 http://erictse2.blogspot.com/
Facebook Company Page http://www.facebook.com/tsetseconsulting
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