Videography in marketing and consumer research

Purpose – Marketing and consumer researchers have only recently been able to put videographic methods into their data collection and research representation toolkits. This paper provides an overview of these methods and offers some guidelines for their use. Design/methodology/approach – We offer an overview of videographic methods that illustrates the considerable choice and diversity offered to budding videographers. With examples from different kinds of marketing and consumer research, from academia as well as marketing research practice, we survey, critique, and make recommendations about some of the best ways to use this method. We also promote current and existing venues for distributing videographic work. Findings – We find videographic methods full of promise and in the early introduction growth stage in marketing and consumer research. Combined with decreases in the cost and availability of digital recording media, videography is ready for prime time. Originality/value – Much observational data have been to a large extent “left on the table” because there have been no convenient, reliable, and cost‐effective ways to capture and analyze them and build them into our research theories and representations. In this paper, we present an overview and a set of detailed examples that help to develop, systematize, and begin institutionalizing videographic methods in consumer and marketing research. The result is consumer and marketing research more attuned to the lived realities of everyday consumption, and a broadened research toolkit to capture and expressively present these realities.