A while back I wrote a review of the book “The Culture Code, an Ingenious Way To Understand Why People Around The World Live And Buy As They Do. The book discusses how different cultures view same matters differently and tries to find the unconscious reason for people’s choices.
For example the culture code for shopping is “reconnecting with life”, the culture code for health is “movement”. The American code for cars is “Identity,” while the German code for cars is “Engineering.” If you haven’t read it, start reading it tonight.
While the book topics are simply amazing, since the first time I read the book (I’ve read it 3 times by now) I was anxious to learn how to find the culture code for other products/values/people that were not in the book. For example I wanted to find the American culture code for “Hookah” and see if it is any different than the Middle Eastern culture code for it.
I tried to understand how Clotaire Rapaille (the author of the book) found the culture codes that he did and tried to apply them myself. I surveyed customers, conducted study sessions with them, and analyzed the results. In the surveys and study sessions I asked three main questions:
- Try to remember the “First Time” you used the product in as much detail as possible.
- Try to remember the “Most Powerful Memory” of using the product in as much detail as possible.
- Try to remember the “Most Recent Memory” of using the product.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Tags: clotaire Rapaille, cutlre code, marketing, the culture code
February 3rd, 2010 at 11:01 am
One of the greatest aspects in Rapaille’s methods is that he ***DOESN’T BELIEVE IN WHAT PEOPLE SAY***.In Chapter 1 (The Birth of a Notion), he outlines a series of 5 principles whereby he can discover the “culture code” hidden behind a product or an experience. Principle #1 is YOU CAN’T BELIEVE WHAT PEOPLE SAY.
That is the reason why, in the 3-hour “culture code” discovery sessions he facilitates, he is so eager to break down the experiment in 3 1-hour sections:
1. the 1st hour is dedicated to having people speak consciously about their thoughts. That’s when the “rational mind” speaks
2. the 2nd hour is when Rapaille takes out the chairs off the room. People feel uncomfortable and as a result they speak freely of their emotions. That is when the “limbic” brain speaks, the one which is supposed to control emotions.
3. in the 3rd hour instead, Rapaille asks people to lay down on the floor, and to move backwards in time to find out memories associated with the product/experience under scrutiny. At this point in the discovery process, people are prone to let their “reptilian” or “lizard” brain speak. That’s when he expects to see the “culture code” bubble up.
Another interesting aspect regarding Rapaille’s method is that he does not care about the content of the message. Only the “structure” is of interest for him. And the structure is, according to him, how the individual describes his/her relationship with the product/experience; not what he/she says about it.
February 3rd, 2010 at 4:55 pm
Jean, thank you for the comment. Very well put.