Using Mobile Ethnography for remote, Multi Country Market Research

Before Uber and Lyft, if you wanted to hail a taxi, you had to go and find one. Now the taxi comes to where you are. 

In the same way, smartphone and 4G powered mobile ethnography platforms are empowering researchers and brands to understand in-the-moment, in-context consumer behaviours across multiple countries at scale. 

Instead of flying around the world to observe how consumers behave in their everyday contexts, Digital Ethnography enables you do to do remote Qualitative Research and bring these cultural insights to you, at scale and in real-time. 

This short blog shares some insights as to how recent innovations help researchers to shine a light into homes around the world from the comfort of their desk.

In-person Qualitative Research

In person ethnographic research studies have been a popular research methodology for many years as they offer a unique insight into the real-life behaviours and rituals of people in their everyday contexts. 

As part of a multi-method or mixed-method research approach, in-person ethnographic and qualitative research methodologies represent the perfect complement to quantitative research and analytics. 

Ethnographic research helps researchers understand the nuance of context, how it impacts consumer behaviour and can surface, impactful insights into the unmet, unarticulated needs of consumers based on observed behaviours. 

The Challenges of in-person qualitative research

Despite the attractions, the approach is not without its drawbacks. Chief among these include:

The increased cost of travel 

The time wasted while researchers are in transit

The linear nature of the approach. As traditional ethnography usually consists of a “one researcher, one respondent methodology” , it can take weeks to observe even a group of 20 respondents, 

The risk that the respondent will modify their behaviour because of the presence of the researcher

The limited-time window that researchers get to spend with respondents.

The solution: remote qualitative research using Mobile/ Digital Ethnography

Recent years have led to the emergence of Mobile Ethnography platforms and remote diary study tools like Indeemo that give researchers a periscope into the everyday, cultural context of multiple markets at the same time. 

Instead of travelling to meet respondents one by one, a researcher can concurrently conduct a remote Digital Ethnographic research or remote Diary Study with multiple respondents at the same time. 

The ubiquity of Smartphones and cheap/all-you-can-eat mobile broadband means that remote qualitative research has become a feasible, cost-effective and scalable solution. This methodology is being embraced by pioneering consultancies and innovative brands who have a global footprint and are seeking to better understand their customers at scale, in their everyday context. 

Many of these businesses are drowning in a sea of quantitative data and analytics and are increasingly frustrated by their inability to interpret the data, find the signal in the noise and surface actionable insights. Remote, mobile ethnography offers an ability to gain real insights provided it is set up correctly. 

Remote Qualitative Research is easy to activate 

To extract the maximum ROI from this agile, remote qualitative research methodology, you should:

Have researchers on your team who can set up projects, moderate respondents, analyse the data and create your reports. 

Be able to tap into a network of recruiters who can recruit, manage and pay respondents in each country (we can help here), 

Activate a network of in-market experts who will translate, moderate and analyse the data for you (we can help here too!).

Use a Mobile Ethnography / Video Diary Study platform that can support multiple languages.

Provide adequate incentives to ensure tasks are completed

Leveraging Mobile Ethnography platforms for remote Market Research

For consultancies and brands looking to connect with their global customer base, software solutions like Indeemo’s In-the-moment Video Research Platform include the following features as standard:

The ability to centralise data from multiple markets into a single, easy to use dashboard.

The ability to run qualitative research projects in multiple countries concurrently.

The ability to offer respondents in each market a localised user experience.

The ability to support tasking in any language.

The ability to remotely immerse you into the culture and context of a global customer base with zero time spent travelling.

The ability to provide automated video transcriptions supported with a suite of analysis tools to reduce the time it takes to analyse the data. 

We see a consistent and growing trend towards concurrent, multi-market, remote qualitative research studies using mobile ethnography. What used to take months now routinely takes weeks. 

The ability to aggregate multi-media, context-rich, in-the-moment behavioural data, remotely, from a global audience in a single dashboard is transforming how brands from CPG to Tech are connecting with their users and customers. The time saved and the ability to quickly pop up remote qualitative research at scale is now being leveraged by brands who traditionally, and vehemently nailed their colours to the mast of big data. 

Big data and analytics are awesome at surfacing the what and the when – and sometimes the where. They fall well short when it comes to explaining why people behave they do. 

If you’re looking to understand the nuance and influence of context at scale, remotely, across multiple markets, at scale, concurrently, then you need to consider adding Mobile/Digital Ethnography to your research toolkit. 

It’s time to consider mobile ethnography as the next layer of contextual data in your insights stack. 

About Eugene Murphy

Eugene Murphy is the CEO and Founder of Indeemo, a leading mobile application and desktop solution that helps researchers capture rich insights from respondents around the world.

Eugene is passionate about leveraging modern, intuitive, agile technologies to help businesses better connect with their customers to discover and understand the moments that really matter. 

A graduate of Engineering at University College, Cork, Ireland, Eugene has held multiple international roles in technology and product management before becoming the Founder & CEO of Indeemo.

About Indeemo

Indeemo's Mobile Ethnography platform helps researchers, designers, Insights teams, and brands capture authentic, in-context, in-the-moment behaviors and feelings that help them better understand what really matters to their customers. By merging mobile, video, and private social networking technologies, Indeemo's agile, mobile ethnography solution delivers rich, contextual insights at scale and in real-time.

Let us Support You

We have supported thousands of remote, Qualitative research projects. We work with everyone from Freelance Consultants, to boutique Consultancies, to large Agencies to Enterprise Clients.   

We’re experts at mobile qualitative research and we always go the extra mile.   

So if you have a signed-off budget but may need to postpone or cancel a planned project, working with a mobile ethnography application like Indeemo will help you keep your research going - from home - in these challenging times.