Advertising strategy and anthropology : a focused look at consumers and their organizing devices

Abstract

This thesis was designed and written with advertising stakeholders in mind. The aim of my thesis is to illustrate how listening to and understanding the behavior and voices of consumers from the perspective of a trained anthropologist can improve advertising strategies. My instruments for conducting this research include an in-depth investigation of 28 consumers who use organizing devices (e.g. personal digital assistants and paper-based organizers) and a qualitative analysis of two print ads from Palm, Inc. In the first phase of my research, I employed ethnographic techniques and analyses to shed light on the usage-based benefits consumers realize by using organizers. In the second part of my research, I reveal my analysis and interpretations of print ads from Palm, one of the world's largest producers of organizers. My research culminates with the placement of the Palm advertisers' decisions in a critical framework. I do this by illuminating the consonance and contradiction between the ways in which I found consumers using organizers and the ways in which they are promoted in the advertising. Among other things, my research found informants using their organizers as a means to escape the tedium of commuting to and from work; I also found informants using their organizers to extend their memory capacity and create solutions to problems. In the end, my interpretations lead to pragmatic conclusions that potentially make advertising strategy more efficacious: Palm advertising should create scenes in which people are actively using their organizers to achieve benefits (e.g. memory, entertainment, etc.) they seek.