Need for ‘anthro-marketer’ for Asian business

It is common in the business that the ‘black box’ of the customers cannot be interpreted with given formulas. Even if you have ‘good’ clients, they may leave you without a valid reason. There are ways to read the customer mindset from a different perspective. This is a ‘challenge’ faced by most of the Asian companies. It is important to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage for any business while identifying core competencies. In this context, we should identify the ‘Role of Anthropologists’ as many leading companies receive professional services to ‘read’ and ‘understand’ their present and potential customers.

What is anthropology and who is an anthropologist?

Anthropology is the study of humans, past and present. To understand the full sweep and complexity of cultures across all of human history, anthropology draws and builds upon knowledge from the social and biological sciences as well as the humanities and physical sciences (American Anthropological Association).

It is important to ‘read and study’ the subject. An anthropologist is a person with an extensive knowledge of anthropology who uses this knowledge in their work, typically, to solve problems specific to humanity.

Marketing and anthropology

If you go through the success stories in the world during the last two to three decades, you can see many examples of the way businesses have used the service of anthropologists. In 1991, the Business Page of New York Times carried an article by Claudia Deutsch, of an increasing number of anthropologists employed by major corporations. Meanwhile, Baer (2014) in Business Insider observed that “Google hired an ethnographer to ferret out the meaning of ‘mobile’. Intel has an in-house cultural anthropologist and Microsoft is reportedly the second-largest employer of anthropologists in the world”.

More interestingly, the same article discusses the case of Adidas about how they were able to understand the ‘world and life of customers’ through an anthropological lens. Mitchell Osak (Managing Director of Quanta Consulting Inc.) clearly argued that anthropology which is important in business requires the marketer to frame the problem in human – not business terms. He further explained the need to find patterns and insights. Quoted below what he has elaborated on this: 

It is important to understand that in post-modern business, what we think as business executives, about customers and what customers want from a company (or product) can be totally different, as it should be read from the perspective of an anthropologist

“The anthropologist then undertakes a careful analysis of the data to uncover themes or patterns. When organised in themes, a variety of insights will emerge about how a customer feels, their goals and what drives their actions. Of course, traditional quantitative and qualitative research methods have their place and should remain part of a marketer’s analytical tool kit. However, anthropology will play an increasing role in uncovering the consumer’s subconscious needs as well as societal/religious behavioural drivers, areas that are largely impervious to standard qualitative techniques. Producing this holistic view will allow marketers to design more relevant products and services that deliver higher value.” (Osak, 2014)

Conclusion

It is important to understand that in post-modern business, what we think as business executives, about customers and what customers want from a company (or product) can be totally different, as it should be read from the perspective of an anthropologist. And also you need to have different lenses to read your customers. If you read your customer only from the lens of a marketer you can satisfy the customer. Hence you should read the customer from the lens of an anthropologist to delight (exceeding the expectation of customers. In simple ‘WOW’ factor) the customers. As marketers to achieve sustainable competitive advantage we need to delight customers better than our competitors. The challenge for CEOs of Asian companies is to convert the mode of ‘Marketer’ to modern ‘Anthro-Marketer’. You may train your marketing staff or directly you can hire anthropologists. Anyway ‘Business Sense’ is the key to success.

(The writer is a Professor in Management – Open University of Sri Lanka.)