At-A-Glance: Marketing is about products, anthropology is about people.
Tension: Even the best ad agencies, design boutiques, online businesses and luxury brands are product-biased.
Question: How do we bring the complexity of human reality into the full focus of businesses and then use products and communications to trumpet these truths and grow profits?
Talk Value: German [pronounced Gherman] Dziebel hails from St. Petersburg, Russia, where he started off as an American Indian supporter and aficionado. At that time his name was Eagle Owl. With a bunch of other young human designers, Eagle Owl participated in powwows, backpacking trips, lecturing, researching, dancing, singing, sacred running and other Indianesque pursuits. Then in 1991, Eagle Owl cut his hair and decided to become Dr. Dziebel.
Dr. Dziebel grew to become a professional anthropologist who studied, researched, worked, taught and published in the fields of evolutionary, sociocultural and applied anthropology in Russia, Poland and the U.S. between roughly 1991 and 2005. Dr. Dziebel was involved in long-term field research in different parts of Russia as well as in Lithuania, Bulgaria, Belgium, Poland and the U.S. He authored two academic books and dozens of articles. While in academia, Dr. Dziebel invented a new theory of human origins, a new theory of Indo-European historical phonology, a new version of American (Indian) history, and a new theory of human kinship. He believes in intellectual creativity and scientific findings almost as much as religious believers believe in miracles. Dr. Dziebel also participant-observes anthropologists in and out of academia to grow the business and practice of the discipline. For details on all that, check out Dr. Dziebel’s academic website at www.kinshipstudies.org.
This part of my life is now largely cached. Now German goes about grounding strategic planning and business consulting in the collective wisdom of human cultures and his own innovative theoretical vision. He practices ethnographic methods to connect in real time producers, citizens and consumers on both sides of the corporate-public and government-public divides. He’s part of the growing trend in the industry, government, church and the military to utilize academic social-scientific experience to leverage brands, products, campaigns, and missions. For a couple of years he was making a living by advancing business, product innovation and account planning at the hot creative agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky. Currently he’s VP, Strategy Director, at Publicis, New York.
Disclaimer: But I am also a normal guy with hobbies, movies and interests who is never tired of learning from other people. And when I am free from advancing business and advertising, I just hang around, run around, sit around, talk around and laugh around just like anybody else. You can write me about personal, professional and business issues at dziebelg (hot) gmail (hot) com.
