Too much reality? The perils of easy access to hearts, minds and bedrooms

This paper argues, with several examples from experience as well as secondary data sources, that researchers are doing themselves a disservice by focusing excessively on their role as providers of consumer reality.

Too much reality? The perils of easy access to hearts, minds and bedrooms

Anjali PuriIndia

Sangeeta GuptaPepsiCo India

INTRODUCTION

Year: 2010

Event: Annual brand planning workshop

Scene: Team of brand custodians including research agency, advertising agency and brand management watching video footage from an ethnographic project among teens. The teenagers have been asked to film highlights of their lives for a week, and they have been startlingly enthusiastic. We get glimpses of banter and leg pulling, fantasy-laden bedrooms, swearing and smoking, classroom defiance and disruption, “wild” partying, rock band practice sessions. The team watches in voyeuristic glee, marveling...

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