[Sigia-l] Ethnography - using actors in fieldstudies

[Eric Reiss]

Hi Jayson,

As someone else has suggested, this IS very much like mystery
shopping - and the results can be very good.

Since I trained as an actor and director, let me give you a few words
of advice.

First, there are actors who can improvise and there are those who
can't. You need improvisors, so make sure you check this out when
auditioning your cast. Consider giving them a simple Viola Spolin
excercise based on an interview situation.

Second, very few actors have a background in anthropology, market
research, or business. Hence, they will invariably fail to ask good 
follow-up questions. I would therefore advise you to give your
"customers" an earphone (most are tiny things that are virtually
invisible when worn). This way, you can prompt your actor if there is
a specific question that needs to be asked or if the actor needs help
when a conversation goes way off script.

Third, script as little of this as possible. The actor should be
encouraged to use natural language and not to get flustered if things
go off in an unexpected direction - which conversations always do.
So, provide general guidelines, a set of questions to which you want
answers. But don't write a script - tempting as this is. And trust
the improvisational abilities of your cast.

Fourth, make sure your "customers" have developed detailed
backgrounds for themselves. During the initial chit-chat, the
financial advisor will invariably try to put the customer at ease by
asking social questions like, "Oh, you live in Engelwood. How long
have you been there?" Simple as this question is, if the actor has
not prepared a background, they are going to falter. Urge them to
choose a background story that stays as close as possible to their
own personal details as possible. Names and ages of kids are
important. Names of their schools. Stuff like this is critical if
you're going to make this interview believeable. 

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Eric Reiss
Managing Director
FatDUX Copenhagen
www.fatdux.com

---- Original Message ----
From: jayson.elliot at gmail.com
To: sigia-l at asis.org
Subject: RE: [Sigia-l] Ethnography - using actors in fieldstudies
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 23:01:02 -0500

>We're preparing to do some field studies on financial advisors and 
>how
>they work with their clients.
>Of course, the idea of having a researcher observe people discussing
>their private financial information raises all kinds of red flags - 
>in
>fact, we can't do that at all.
>
>So.
>
>Here's my question. We have decided to use actors in the place of the
>real customers, after carefully preparing them based on our research
>of the demographic we're looking at.
>
>Does anyone know of any case studies that might address a situation
>like this? Has anyone tried a similar approach?
>
>Specifically, here's what we're proposing:
>*We will inform three financial advisors (FAs) that at some point 
>over
>a three-day period, they may or may not be visited by one of our
>actors posing as a new client.
>
>*Each advisor will have a camera placed in their office, and a screen
>recorder on their PC.
>*The camera and screen recorder will not be turned on unless one of
>our actors is present.
>*The advisor will have no way of knowing when the camera is turned 
>on,
>so they will not be able to tell the difference between real clients
>and actors.
>
>
>Thoughts?
>------------
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>April 10-14, 2008, Miami, Florida
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