Consumer experiences in the “house of the future”: An enquiry into surveillance‐based consumer research techniques

Abstract

Technological and cultural change has led to the increased incorporation of surveillance techniques in all types of consumer research. This paper raises a number of topical controversies regarding the research potential, ethical status and practical consequences of these approaches. We report on a research project involving radio frequency identification (RFID) tagging of a family living in a “house‐of‐the‐future”, in order to address these questions through consumers’ experiences of surveillance‐based research programmes. The interview data suggests that the kinds of ethical concerns that feature prominently in academic and popular literature on surveillance were not deemed to be problematic by either participant research subjects or project planners. The study does, however, highlight a number of tensions that emerge from the multi‐agency nature of these projects, especially regarding differing expectations about the type, value and relevance of the consumer research data produced.

Keywords:

• surveillance‐based research
• consumer privacy
• ethics
• marketing research