Avant Amour — Notes from the fieldAvant Amour is a founder-led qualitative research firm in India. We help D2C and digital-first brands understand consumer behaviour through ethnographic research — in-home, mobile, and WhatsApp diary studies.https://avantamour.in/en-INWhy D2C brands need ethnography, not another surveyhttps://avantamour.in/insights/why-d2c-needs-ethnography/https://avantamour.in/insights/why-d2c-needs-ethnography/Surveys can tell you what customers say. Ethnography tells you what they do. For a D2C founder making product decisions, the second answer is the one that matters.Wed, 08 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTWhatsApp as a research instrumenthttps://avantamour.in/insights/whatsapp-as-research-instrument/https://avantamour.in/insights/whatsapp-as-research-instrument/Why a two-week WhatsApp diary study captures the long tail of customer context that no one-hour interview can.Mon, 22 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTThe tier-2 customer is not a smaller version of the metro customerhttps://avantamour.in/insights/the-tier-2-customer-is-not-the-metro-customer/https://avantamour.in/insights/the-tier-2-customer-is-not-the-metro-customer/Most D2C brands extrapolate from Mumbai and Bengaluru and call it national. Two weeks in Indore and Coimbatore will change your mind.Fri, 05 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTFocus groups are overrated. Here's what we run instead.https://avantamour.in/insights/focus-groups-are-overrated/https://avantamour.in/insights/focus-groups-are-overrated/Focus groups produce confident answers to the wrong questions. For behavioural research on digital products, there is a better default.Tue, 19 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMTReading the room: what to notice in an Indian home visithttps://avantamour.in/insights/reading-the-room-in-an-indian-home/https://avantamour.in/insights/reading-the-room-in-an-indian-home/A field-notes primer for founders joining their first ethnography visit. What to watch, what to leave alone, and what almost always matters more than the interview itself.Wed, 30 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT