Stories That Deliver Business Insights

Ethnographic stories offer executives an empathic understanding of how consumers live, work and play through gritty and detailed descriptions. What you learn from ethnographic stories may surprise you — and change your company’s strategy.

By Julien Cayla, Robin Beers and Eric Arnould

The data from the rollout of the new Mustang confused Ford executives.

After a redesigned Ford Mustang was released in the late 1990s, consumers reported finding the new car less powerful than previous incarnations. That feedback troubled Ford engineers, because the iconic vehicle’s power was objectively higher in this version than in earlier models.

To find out what was going on, Ford dispatched a team from a consulting company ...

Get Stories That Deliver Business Insights now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.