What do you do and who do you work with?
I'm the founder of Cultural Research and Analysis Inc., based in New York City and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. My job is basically conducting research for commercial clients, either corporations or advertising agencies. Often it's foundational research for new products, advertising or brand strategy. Or they may just want to understand the world of customers—how people actually use their products, how they clean, for example. Some of the clients I've worked for include Citibank, Sharpie, PepsiCo, Target and Nissan. I've also worked for a number of advertising agencies in New Zealand, which was really fun.
How did you learn how to do your job?
I went to graduate school in social psychology at the University of Vermont, where I got my PhD in 1992. While I was there, I became interested in anthropology and started taking classes. I got more and more interested in the cultural and societal level rather than the individual focus of psychology. When I was all-but-dissertation in psychology, I took a leave of absence to study cultural anthropology at New York University. I got an MPhil, including taking exams for the PhD, and finished up with an ethnographic study of women in New York's jazz community. I then went back and finished in psychology, framing it as cultural psychology.
How did you get into this work?
When I was in grad school at NYU, there were some anthropologists working in a firm that was bringing anthropological or ethnographic research to the commercial and advertising worlds. They needed freelance researchers. My first foray into the field was hanging out in luxury car dealerships on the Upper East Side and looking at how luxury cars were sold. I really enjoyed the work and learning about different things in different areas.
When I finished my PhD, I first worked for a research institute focused on social issues, in a program for social evaluation. But I was still doing consumer research freelancing. It had never seemed like a viable career choice, then one day I thought, "Why not?" I worked for a number of different firms. Among the people I worked with was Rita Denny, an anthropologist at the BRS Group. I joined their Chicago office as their first "virtual" partner. Then the Chicago office created Practica Group; I was a founding partner. Just this year, I went out on my own and founded Cultural Research and Analysis.
How do you use your psychology training?
Even if I'm working as an anthropologist and bringing anthropology, culture and social ways of analyzing into consumer research and marketing research, it's really psychologists and the psychological world view that dominate those realms. Understanding the qualitative approach and experimental methods in psychology, plus all those courses in statistics and quantitative methods and so on, have helped me understand where people are coming from and the quantitative framework. The interviewing—the interacting with people that's at the crux of my work—is also an important lesson from psychology. There are more and more people with anthropological backgrounds coming into the field, but probably most people are from psychology.
How do clients use what you learn?
One example: Along with colleagues, I did work for a major retailer on how women shop for lingerie to help them redesign the lingerie department. We were commissioned by an anthropologist who worked in the company's research division. The company acted like selling bras was the most difficult thing because of the multiple size and design possibilities, even though men's dress shirts have the same issue.
We talked to women about lingerie and went shopping with them at the store in question and at its competitors. That research led to a whole redesign of the displays and dressing rooms, which were made much more soothing, with nicer furniture and better lighting. Another thing was coordinating bras and panties displayed together. Also, even if people don't buy them, there's something alluring about high-end, gown-like negligees, which could be shown on the outskirts of the department to be aspirational to people.
What's a typical day?
There are three phases to my work. There's the proposal-writing stage. Usually someone comes to me with a research or business question. During that phase, a good part of my day is spent writing proposals, having phone calls to talk about projects, trying to figure out how the research would be done, creating a team. It can be fast and furious, where I'm on the computer or phone morning to night.
The next phase would be the field work, or actual research. I'm immersed in the topic, the place, the endeavor. I often travel for my work, so I'm living in hotels. I've been to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Germany, France, Mexico, Poland, South Africa, Russia, the United Kingdom, Brazil and other places for my work. It's deep immersion, which could be like classical anthropological fieldwork condensed into a couple of weeks. It could be on-site interviews in homes, stores or even a bar if it's an alcohol study. We also do focus groups. We do some semiotic work, really taking apart the symbolism in print ads, websites or retail design. Sometimes it entails hanging out in a place, trying to understand it and observing carefully.
The final phase is the analytical phase—thinking about what it all means, the implications—and then report writing. Traditionally, this has been in the form of PowerPoint reports, coupled with video to bring worlds to life for clients. More recently, this phase has been taking the form of more conversational, joint analyses, with faster turnaround times.
What's next?
One of the other things that's happening in this world is that studies are becoming more and more international. It's a global world. I have a personal connection to Ethiopia through my husband, plus Ethiopia has one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. I want to live half time in Addis Ababa and half time in New York. That's what led to this new venture.
