August 13, 2009
What Can Marketers Borrow From the Anthropologist's Toolbox?by Paula Gray, AIPMM
Anthropology's toolbox can offer much to assist business practices, especially marketing. Anthropology answers the question of what it means to be human. It is the scientific study of humankind, human origins and human variation, wherever and whenever humans have been found. This can include humans in shopping malls, boardrooms and offices. What marketers can do is to use anthropological methodologies to help inform business activities, tasks, and decisions because customers are humans, too.
Anthropology, as the study of humans, uses a particular methodology as a way of studying humans, called ethnography. Ethnography gathers data through the following methods: participant observation, interviews, life histories, photos and film, surveys, and historical artifacts. What makes anthropology more relevant than the other social sciences alone is that it encompasses much more. Anthropology encompasses sociology by addressing social institutions and relationships. It encompasses biology by addressing the environment within which humans live and how humans interact with that environment. It encompasses physiology by recognizing the limits and unique attributes that the human body has including aging, health, disease and physical characteristics. Anthropology also encompasses psychology by addressing human mental and behavioral characteristics including their beliefs, values and fears. According to the anthropologists at Palomar College,
