If a picture speaks a thousand words, imagine what kind of story a video could tell…

The need for videography in Consumer Research has been recognised and endorsed by the ACR Film Festival, which has been growing for more than a decade. Belk and Kozinets (2012) argue “As industry increasingly embraces videographic techniques for representing consumer realities and portraying their marketing research findings, it is useful for our field to follow suit and, in many ways, lead the charge towards finding new, rich forms for understanding the consumer”. Indeed the ACR film festival has showcased incredible research that highlights the importance of videography, the rich data it provides and the captivating presentation and storytelling of consumer research (e.g. Hietanen, Schouten, & Vaniala, 2013; Kawaf, 2014; Rokka, Rousi, & Hämäläinen, 2014; Seregina, Campbell, Figueiredo, & Uotila, 2013; Veer, 2014)

This research takes videography to a new level in consumer research, an unavoidable move toward studying the ever-growing arena of digital consumption. Therefore, this abstract presents screencast videography as a method of studying consumer behaviour in the specific context of online fashion shopping.

With the rapid evolving nature of technology, various experiences have moved completely or partially to the digital world. New experiences and opportunities arise everyday for the average individual as well as for businesses of all sizes. This is apparent in the rapid growth of ‘netnography’ as a method for studying ‘the field behind the screen’ by Kozinets (2002). This method has allowed an infinite number of possibilities for studying online communities in digital ethnographic fashion. Similarly, if visual ethnographies and videography research such as Burning Man, ESPN and Nike Town (Kozinets, 2002a; Kozinets et al., 2004; Penaloza, 1998) allowed such rich understanding of observable experiences, so far the same has not been possible in the context of online experiences. The consumption experience of online fashion websites along with browsing, shopping or interacting with web atmospherics occur within the personal and private space of the individual; and so there is currently no method in the literature that allows for such work to be done in studying online experiences and behavioural decision making processes.

Therefore, my proposition in this abstract is to introduce screencast videography as a form of videographic interpretive approach to studying the consumption experience of digital spaces. Screencasting is defined, in Information Technology research, as “a method of presenting digitally recorded playback of computer screen output which often contains audio narration” (Brown, Luterbach, & Sugar, 2009, p.1748). The use of screencasts is most popular in education and particularly in virtual learning environments. Brown et al. (2009, p.1748) argue, “Because screencasting captures desktop activity along with audio commentary, it can be a particularly effective method of explaining computer-based procedures”. I work on employing this method in understanding the consumption experience in online context; the empirical use of this method has been presented at the ACR film festival (Kawaf, 2014). Similar videography, this approach allows for the production of natural data (Knoblauch, Schnettler, Raab, & Soeffner, 2006) and is indeed less obtrusive since the hindering camera effect argued by Belk and Kozinets (2005) is not present in this approach.

• Fatema Kawaf(Essex Business School, University of Essex, UK)