Using digital ethnography to build a deeper understanding of the lives of young women

The Challenge

Our client, a manufacturer of women’s intimate health products wanted to build a better understanding of the lives of young women, their health & beauty routines, and the role digital channels played in shaping and informing opinions about their health in general and intimate health. This included how they became informed on a range of health topics and what was influencing their behaviours and purchase decisions

Our Approach

Digital ethnography was the ideal methodological approach for this audience and subject matter. Intimate health is a difficult and sensitive subject to research, and one where a young audience would have trouble opening up to an unfamiliar research team. Instead we utilised a two week-long digital ethnography study via an app based platform that drew on many of the design and usability experience of social media. The study was caried out with a mix of young women aged 16-24 from different background and households. Tasks were designed to understand their lives and routines and included uploading pictures of different products they owned, shooting video selfies to explain health and beauty routines, screen capture to record digital journeys and taking screen shots of their favourite social media influencers and other digital touchpoints that informed their health and beauty knowledge and purchases.

The Outcome

The study gave the client a fresh understanding of this audience, provided a roadmap for new product innovation and helped to shape the comms plan for the brand for the next two years. The study was listed as a finalist for ‘best customer insight’ at the 2020 BHBIA awards