Psycho-geography: circuit training.
This exercise adapts psycho-geography to market research. Psycho-geography is described as the
study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized
or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals." Another definition is "a whole toy box full of
playful, inventive strategies for exploring cities...just about anything that takes pedestrians off their
predictable paths and jolts them into a new awareness of the urban landscape”. So it is both an
academic movement and a way for writers to get inspired and to provide them with unusual subject
material. One of the most celebrated texts is London Orbital by Ian Sinclair based on a walk around
the M25. The writer is free to write about the landscape, the history of the area and about the
people he meets as he walks. Will Self has also written extensively about London walking in it.
What interests me about psycho-geography as a research method is that it offers us a way to sample
a place randomly but without needing to use the apparatus of research design which separates the
part created by recruiters, that mediated by fieldwork companies. And lastly the moderator/analyst.
It is an industrial model which becomes more problematic the more you look at it. The moderator is
at least 1 step removed from the people they are interviewing who have been primed by the
recruitment process. We know what a flaky process this can be. So why not construct a simple
random walk to explore a marketing problem? The psycho-geographers often draw a circle on a map
and try to follow this as closely as possible until they have completed a circuit. Hence the name of
this exercise. The walk doesn’t have to be circular. But the danger of just walking outside your office
is that you won’t get enough randomness.
We only have time for a small circuit. Try and make it a circular walk, not one up and down the
street. You have 30 minutes to do the exercises then we will reassemble and compare notes. I am
hoping that you will return with at least one insight into the product you have chosen and also an
insight into how randomness can be used to make thinking about customers more inspirational.
First here are some product areas and activities for you to think about. Here are your product areas
- please choose just one with which you are least familiar.
Face cream/sun cream – keeping skin protected on the move.
Bottled mineral water – drinking on the move.
A paper diary for organising oneself.
You have some interesting places in the neighbourhood. One is Waterloo railway station. A second
is the Thames Southbank. A third is the community centre where the course is being held today.
There are supermarkets and stores on the Waterloo Road down south from the Imax cinema
opposite the station if you want to include a retail environment as part of your cycle. The stores
don’t have to sell the item you are thinking about. Just make sure your walk takes in a variety of
environments.
Questions you might want to reflect on as you walk:
How many connections can I find between the product and the space/environment I am walking
through?
Who brings it here and why?
Where do they keep it? What other items keep it company?
If it was lost, dropped or thrown away here – and you found it here what would you do with it?
Is there any messaging around which is relevant to the product? It might be advertising but not
necessarily.
Are there any cues here which might make people feel they needed the product?
If you had to get hold of the product quickly, where would be the nearest easiest place to find it?
To add spice to your walk you are allowed to recruit 2 expert witnesses.
One who you think may know a lot about the product category.
And one who you think doesn’t use it and wouldn’t on the surface know anything about it. But might
have a perspective on the people they think buy it or use it.
Don’t spend any more than 5 minutes talking to either. If you can, let them do the talking and don’t
try to steer them too much once you have asked them to tell you what they know.
Once we are back in the community centre we will find out what we have learned about our 3
categories.
John Griffiths
Creative Director
Spring Research
May 2012