Probably, one of the most challenging situations in our “NetWorld” is that both people and companies can be traditional, modern and/or postmodern, independently of geographical boundaries.

Moreover, regarding specific situations, a person behaves different. Let’s take as an example a young contemporary mother, who is also working, considering Ronald Inglehart’s value map:

• As a mother she prioritizes values such as family, kids, health. A mix between traditional and modern values

• As a professional, she prioritizes values such as goal driven, pleasure of working, achievement. Modern values

• As a friend, environment, gender, self-expression. Postmodern values

Is she schizophrenic? No… Is she forgotten some values in each case? No… Simply, she is reordering her value agenda!

She has all those values, but depending of the situation, ones come first and then the others. The value agenda makes she behaves in different ways in each specific situation.

From the company side, to make this lady live its brand experience will depend on the association between the company and her value agendas.

The new challenge for companies would be to re-create the way they segment their audiences. Neither gender, age, status... nor ethnography.

Erich Joachimsthaler is also talking about behaviours and limitations in ethnographic research.

He says: “Ethnography research has become hugely popular among researchers and marketers who seek to understand consumer behaviour. But ethnography has inherent limitations. It is not possible with large samples, it is difficult or impossible to quantify, it involves high level of participant burden, it generates little information about brief or uncommon experiences and it does not representatively sample the everyday life context”.

On March 20^th, he will talk about this issue under the umbrella of his brand new approach, known as “Hidden in plain sight” through ARF Webcast.

Could sociology give us a new way to approach and understand the relation between us and a brand experience?