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Monograph presented to the Public Relations, Advertising and Tourism Department at the Communications and Arts School, University of São Paulo, for partial compliance with the requirements of the Specialty Graduate Course in order to be awarded the title of Specialist in Communications Market Research.

This monograph opens by presenting an overview and outlining the concept of ethnography among the social science methodologies. It is so closely linked to anthropology that ethnography has even been called cultural anthropology.

An overview of market research methodologies is presented below. Quantitative and qualitative studies are shown as viewpoints that are different but complementary. The researcher creates situations that reproduce the aspects to be studied. Also called laboratory situations, these artificial contexts are different from their everyday or real-life counterparts.

In Chapter 3, market research encompasses the ethnographic approach. Cultural anthropology is the area most widely used by marketing research among anthropological studies. Accustomed to investigating according to a guide or questionnaire, the researcher learns to be an observer, drawing closer to the consumer. However, the ethnographic approach is not limited to noting what is observed. Semiotics is one of the resources available for analyzing observations.

Chapter 4 outlines the limits of this approach. Far from solving any problems, ethnography must be adopted to the scope of the project. Time and heavy investments are the most obvious factors, but there are major challenges such as defining the interpretation of what is observed. The implications of the conceptual framework are apparent, within which the analyst moves.

This paper closes by hinting at future possibilities, with manifestations changing paradigms, but still remaining manifestations, and with the need to understand still well to the fore, anticipating what people do, feel and think.