Constructing audio‐visual representations of consumer archetypes

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explain how audio‐visual archetypal representations likely to engender emotional identification and consumer‐inquisitiveness by marketing professionals can be constructed. Design/methodology/approach – The paper employs video‐ethnography involving the following steps: development of a typology of consumer archetypes based on a priori theory, screening for and identifying informants to exemplify each archetype, filming interviews in and around their homes, developing realistic audio‐visual representations of each archetype and assessing marketing practitioners reactions to the audio‐visual representations. Findings – In response to the audio‐visual archetypal representations, marketing practitioners displayed a high degree of interest and emotional relatedness. The interest generated in the screenings motivated animated discussion and often a desire to better understand the consumers represented by each archetype. These heightened reactions contrast strongly with the relatively emotionally flat responses to traditional marketing research reports. Originality/value – The paper demonstrates that carefully crafted audio‐visual representations of consumer archetypes are likely to engender a consumer orientation in marketing professionals and hence associate with improved marketing decision‐making. It explains that this situation is likely explained by audio‐visual media's superior capacity to foster experiential, emotional knowledge of others, and, the origins of consumer archetypes in the collective un/consciousness and/or widespread strongly embedded cultural beliefs, norms, and values.