Video

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QMRIJ 8,2

Videography in marketing and consumer research
Russell W. Belk
University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

128

Robert V. Kozinets
University of Wisconsin,Madison, Wisconsin, USA
Abstract
Purpose – Marketing and consumer researchers have only recently been able to put videographic methods into their data collection and research representation toolkits. This paper provides an overview of these methods and offers some guidelines for their use. Design/methodology/approach – We offer an overview of videographic methods that illustrates the considerablechoice and diversity offered to budding videographers. With examples from different kinds of marketing and consumer research, from academia as well as marketing research practice, we survey, critique, and make recommendations about some of the best ways to use this method. We also promote current and existing venues for distributing videographic work. Findings – We find videographic methods full ofpromise and in the early introduction growth stage in marketing and consumer research. Combined with decreases in the cost and availability of digital recording media, videography is ready for prime time. Originality/value – Much observational data have been to a large extent “left on the table” because there have been no convenient, reliable, and cost-effective ways to capture and analyze themand build them into our research theories and representations. In this paper, we present an overview and a set of detailed examples that help to develop, systematize, and begin institutionalizing videographic methods in consumer and marketing research. The result is consumer and marketing research more attuned to the lived realities of everyday consumption, and a broadened research toolkit tocapture and expressively present these realities. Keywords Information research, Visual media, Ethnography, Data analysis, Qualitative research Paper type Technical paper

Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal Vol. 8 No. 2, 2005 pp. 128-141 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1352-2752 DOI 10.1108/13522750510592418

Introduction When Robert J. Flaherty left to film the firstvideographic classic, “Nanook of the North” in June 1920, he and his team carried 75,000 feet of film, a Haulberg electric light plant and projector, two Akeley cameras, and a printing machine on a journey that required six weeks of travel by rail, canoe, schooner and dog sled. Today’s digital revolution in video technology would have significantly lightened Flaherty’s load. It has affected everyone from thehome photographer documenting a child’s birthday party to the state of the art film producer like George Lucas. In the past decade, the cost of being able to produce broadcast quality video has plummeted while the technological possibilities have exploded. Equipment to shoot and produce digital video has become substantially smaller, better, and more user-friendly. Technology has made it possiblefor the home desktop or laptop computer-owner to edit video, add special effects, and prepare finished products for distribution via videotapes, CD-ROMs, DVDs, or internet streaming. In terms of both marketing research and consumer research, an array of possibilities has blossomed and more innovations will undoubtedly emerge in the years ahead.

At the same time that the production side ofvideography has mushroomed, demand shows a revolution of rising expectations by consumers and clients raised on television, used to ever-more sophisticated film effects, and having rapidly grown accustomed to using the computer as a portal into the worlds of information, entertainment, buying, selling, working, and communicating, with an increasing reliance on images in each of these spheres of...