PART I: What is videographic research?

Lifestyle research center will be featuring a series of short films this summer that guide anyone interested to consider perspectives into a novel methodology called “videographic research”.

While academics and companies alike dominantly use textual (e.g. interviews) or numeric (e.g. surveys) approaches in studying the changing consumer lifestyles and markets, videography offers a new set of research practices that engages the studied phenomena in the audio-visual form.

The advantages of using and analysing the moving image instead of “static representations” are arguably interesting, especially when studying inherently complex topics such as consumer and service experiences, interactions, practices, lifestyles, tastes, spaces, relationships with objects or brands, or atmospheres.

Videographic research takes inspiration from earlier forms of visual and video based ethnography used in anthropology and sociology (e.g. Dion 2007; Pink 2007). Yet, new videographic research “modes” or varieties have only relatively recently been evoked, for example, in the field of marketing and consumer research – Belk et al. (2018), Cleret et al. (2018), Hietanen et al. (2015), Kozinets and Belk (2005), Rokka and Hietanen (2018). A recent special issue can be found in Journal of Marketing Management (Rokka, Hietanen and Brownlie 2018).

In a series of upcoming postings, we will hope to make the videographic research more accessible and applicable – and hopefully spark new discussions, perspectives and initiatives. For this purpose, we have filmed a series of short introductory videos together with Lifestyle research center’s key collaborators – Joel Hietanen (University of Helsinki, Finland) & Hannu Uotila (Sailer Ltd.). We have sought to make these info packages useful not only for academics but also students, market researchers, and managers. This initiative was masterfully put together by Sailer – a company specialized in videographic research.

We will be covering first of all, what videographic research is but also what advantages, challenges, and future perspectives it might entail – in short, what could videography become. We’ll also share examples of published videography work for you to see. Enjoy!

Session 1: What Is Videographic Research?

 

Session 2: Benefits of videographic research?

 

Session 3: Challenges of videographic research?

More sessions will be coming up shortly!

References

Cléret, B., Dehling, A., Herbert, M., Leroy, J., Rokka, J. and Sohier, A. (2018) The videographic approach in marketing research: Which methodological protocol?, Recherche et Applications en Marketing (English edition), 33 (3), 85-105.

Belk, R.W., Caldwell, M., Devinney, T.M., Eckhardt, G.M., Henry, P., Kozinets, R.V. and Plakoyiannaki, E. (2018) Envisioning consumers: how videography can contribute to marketing knowledge, Journal of Marketing Management, 34 (5-6), 432-458.

Belk RW and Kozinets RV (2005) Videography in marketing and consumer research. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal 8(2): 128–141.

Dion D (2007) The Contribution made by Visual Anthropology to the Study of Consumption Behavior. Recherche et Applications en Marketing 22(1): 61–79.

Pink S (2007) Doing Visual Ethnography. London: SAGE.

Rokka, J. and Hietanen, J. (2018) On positioning videography as a tool for theorizing, Recherche et Applications en Marketing (English edition), 33 (3), 106-121.

Rokka, J., Hietanen, J., and Brownlie, D. (2018) Screening marketing: videography and the expanding horizons of filmic research, Journal of Marketing Management, 34 (5-6), 421-431.

Hietanen, J., Rokka, J. and Schouten, J. (2014) Commentary on Schembri and Boyle (2013): From representation towards expression in videographic consumer research, Journal of Business Research, 67 (9), 2019-2022.