Letting Your Inner Child Show

I just read this interest post on behavioral targeting tools and techniques used on the ground rather than online. Anthropology and ethnographic research is used to describe the activities of people in a certain environments. In this case, the environments were Universal Studios and Disney World in Orlando, Florida.

Behavioral Insider » Blog Archive » Demystifying Escape

However, observation does not tell the story of motivations and triggers, so researchers:

conducted interviews that addressed some emotional experience issues to understand how they experienced the two parks. We did everything from guided imagery to recreate the thoughts and the feelings connected to the theme park. We gave them words to differentiate the two.

The article brings up an interesting theory on the life stage of the family and their reactions to the two theme parks. As one parent put it, "at Disney our kids share experiences with us; at Universal we are sharing our experiences with our kids."

While a trip to Disney might be the epitome of being a good parent, parents are mostly observers there. Universal allows families at certain stages to bond and parents do not have to sacrifice their fun.

Younger families with younger kids, the mother and father were seeing the world through their child's eyes. So there was a kind of vicarious experience. We observed that as distinct in these two parks. Whereas the older families that went to Universal, the parents connected with their kids and the parents became kidlike.

So here is another argument about trying to place people in categories by age or the fact that they have children at home. Learn from it. In 2007, Universal earned a record $92 million, twice what it had made the year before, even though travel to Florida was down.

Tags: ethnography, anthropology, disney, universal, family life stages, behavioral targeting