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Amazon Prime Video Ethnographic Research: How In-Home Studies Revealed What Teen Streaming Data Couldn't
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The global video streaming market is now worth over $800 billion — and yet the people spending the most time on screens remain the least understood. Teens aren't just watching differently from their parents. They're building entirely new relationships with content, devices, and platforms that traditional research methods simply can't capture. When Amazon Prime Video needed to understand how teenagers actually experience digital entertainment — not what they say in a survey, but what they do in the wild — they turned to MindMarket for a cross-cultural ethnographic study that would get inside the living rooms, bedrooms, and daily routines of real families.
30 families. Three countries. One coordinated study. What we found challenged assumptions about how young people consume content — and revealed why the gap between quantitative data and human reality has never mattered more.
The Challenge: Seeing What Dashboards Can't Show
Amazon Prime Video had access to plenty of data. They could see viewing hours, completion rates, and platform switching patterns across their global user base. What they couldn't see was context.
Why does a thirteen-year-old in Tokyo open YouTube instead of Prime Video after school? What's actually happening on the sofa when a family in Minneapolis sits down for a movie night? How does a German teenager discover new content — and what role do friends, algorithms, and cultural moments play in that journey?
These aren't questions you can answer with analytics.
Deloitte's 2025 Digital Media Trends report found that Gen Z spends roughly 50 minutes more per day on social and user-generated content than the average viewer — and 44 minutes less watching traditional shows and films.
The numbers confirmed what Amazon Prime Video already suspected: younger audiences are playing by completely different rules. But understanding which rules, and why, required going beyond the data.
The brief was ambitious: conduct in-home ethnographic research across three culturally distinct markets — the United States, Germany, and Japan — to understand the full entertainment journey of teenagers. Not just what they watch, but how they discover, anticipate, consume, and share content. And crucially, how parents experience and navigate this digital landscape alongside their children.
Our Approach: Three Countries, Thirty Families, One Methodology
International ethnographic research at this scale requires more than good planning — it requires the kind of local intelligence that only comes from being genuinely embedded in each market.
We designed a multi-market study spanning Minneapolis (USA), Berlin (Germany), and Tokyo (Japan), recruiting 10 families per market for a total of 30 households. In-home ethnographic visits were conducted simultaneously across all three locations. Each session involved two complementary interviews within the same household: a 60-minute deep-dive with the teenager and a 30-minute conversation with a parent. This dual-perspective approach was essential — because what teens think they do and what parents observe them doing often tells a very different story.
✨ The research was built around five key areas: the full entertainment journey from content discovery through to post-viewing behaviour; device ecosystems and screen-switching patterns in their natural habitat; family dynamics around co-viewing, screen time, and digital boundaries; the role of social platforms, peer influence, and algorithmic recommendations; and emerging attitudes toward AI-generated content and advertising.
Our recruitment criteria were precise. We weren't looking for any teenager with a streaming subscription. We needed households where teens were active across multiple platforms and devices, where family viewing was part of the routine, and where parents were engaged enough to offer meaningful perspective. In Japan, our local moderators recruited families through trusted networks — essential in a culture where inviting researchers into your home carries particular social weight.
Each teen interview followed a semi-structured discussion guide that moved from general conversation — school, hobbies, friendships — into progressively deeper territory about their digital lives. We asked them to show us their home screens, walk us through their favourite apps, demonstrate how they discover new content, and explain what they do when they're bored versus when they're looking for something specific. The parent interviews complemented this beautifully: while teens showed us what they do, parents helped us understand the household dynamics that shape when and how they do it.
Our local moderators were critical. In Japan, for instance, the conversational dynamic between a teen and an adult interviewer follows different cultural conventions than in the US or Germany. Our Tokyo team knew how to create the warmth and safety needed for a twelve-year-old to open up about their obsession with faceless game streamers or admit they watch TikTok dance videos alone in their room. That cultural fluency isn't something you can brief into a discussion guide — it has to be lived.
A key deliverable was ethnographic video content — professionally captured footage of real teens interacting with their devices and platforms in context. This wasn't about creating a highlights reel. It was about giving Amazon Prime Video's internal stakeholders something no PowerPoint can deliver: the ability to watch a teenager's face as they scroll past an ad, or see how a family negotiates what to watch on a Friday evening.
The Insights: What Teens Actually Do (And Why It Matters for Streaming)
The research surfaced findings that no amount of viewing data could have predicted. Here are five that fundamentally shifted how the client thinks about their younger audience.
Communication infrastructure trumps content platforms. When we asked Japanese teens which app they'd keep if everything else disappeared, the answer wasn't YouTube, TikTok, or any streaming service — it was LINE, their messaging platform. For this generation, connection comes first. Content is what fills the gaps between conversations with friends. Streaming platforms that don't understand this hierarchy will keep optimising for the wrong thing.
Short-form content is a discovery layer, not a destination. The assumption that teens prefer short videos turned out to be far more nuanced than expected. Across all three markets, we observed a consistent pattern: teenagers use TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and similar short-form content as a gateway to longer viewing. Short-form isn't replacing long-form — it's creating demand for it. Pew Research Center's 2024 study confirmed that 90% of US teens use YouTube and over 60% visit TikTok daily — but our ethnographic research showed how those platforms feed into each other. The implication for streaming platforms is significant: the content discovery journey increasingly starts outside your app.
Fandom has gone faceless — and that changes everything. One of the study's most striking cultural findings emerged in Japan, where we encountered the phenomenon of "oshi-katsu" — dedicated fan support for creators who never show their faces. Teens described following game streamers and online singers they've never seen, building deep loyalty based entirely on voice, personality, and the "vibes" of gameplay interactions. One participant had attended live concerts for an animated group, invested her savings in merchandise, and built her entire social identity around supporting creators whose faces she'd never seen. For entertainment brands, this challenges fundamental assumptions about celebrity, visual content, and what drives audience attachment.
Family viewing rituals survive — but second-screening changes the dynamic. Reports of the death of family co-viewing have been greatly exaggerated. Across all three markets, we found consistent examples of shared viewing moments — a Tokyo family gathering for the weekly Friday Road Show movie, families in all markets watching together on Amazon Prime Video. But the nature of togetherness has shifted. In one household, a parent described their teen as "smartphone first" — even during a film he'd chosen himself, the phone stayed in hand. The challenge for streaming platforms isn't getting families to watch together; it's competing for attention within a shared viewing moment.
Parents are navigating AI anxiety without a roadmap. The research revealed a striking spectrum of AI attitudes across generations. Teens were largely pragmatic, while parents expressed deeper anxieties — particularly around deepfake content and algorithmic filter bubbles. One parent worried that AI-driven recommendations "make your world smaller and smaller." These tensions around trust, authenticity, and algorithmic influence have direct implications for how streaming platforms present AI-powered features to different household members.
The Outcome: Research That Travels Through an Organisation
The ethnographic video content became the project's most powerful asset. Rather than a traditional report that circulates among the research team and slowly loses momentum, the video deliverables gave Amazon Prime Video something shareable, visceral, and impossible to ignore.
Product teams watched real teenagers navigate their device ecosystems. Marketing teams saw how content discovery actually happens in the wild — through school conversations and friend recommendations on LINE, not through homepage carousels. Strategy teams gained a cross-cultural lens on how the same platform can mean entirely different things in different markets.
📈 The research directly informed decisions around: content discovery and recommendation strategy for younger audiences; localisation priorities — understanding that cultural adaptation goes far beyond translation; family account features and the parent-teen dynamic within shared subscriptions; short-form content strategy and its relationship to long-form engagement; and how to position AI-driven features in a way that builds trust rather than triggering anxiety.
"The ethnographic footage was transformative. It gave teams across the business a shared reference point — not a summary of what teens said, but the ability to watch them in action."
The three-market design proved especially valuable. By studying the same behaviours across culturally distinct contexts, Amazon Prime Video could distinguish between universal teen patterns (the short-to-long content pipeline, the primacy of peer influence) and market-specific dynamics (Japan's oshi-katsu culture, different screen-switching preferences across markets). That distinction is essential for making smart global product decisions.
Ready to See What Your Audience Is Really Doing?
Whether you're a streaming platform, entertainment brand, or any organisation trying to understand how young people interact with your product in the real world, ethnographic research delivers answers that no other methodology can match.
To talk about how MindMarket can take you inside the homes — and the habits — of the audiences that matter most to your business.
→ Explore our services to see how we coordinate qualitative research across 55+ countries from a single point of contact.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is in-home ethnographic research and how does it work?
In-home ethnographic research involves visiting participants in their natural environment — their homes — to observe and understand real behaviour in context. Unlike lab-based studies or online surveys, ethnographic research captures the messy, authentic reality of how people live, including habits they might not think to mention in a traditional interview. For this study, our researchers spent time with families, watching teens interact with their devices and platforms as they normally would.
How do you coordinate qualitative research across multiple countries simultaneously?
It starts with our global network of local research partners and native-speaking moderators. We develop a core discussion guide centrally, then adapt it with each local team to ensure cultural relevance. Central project management means consistent quality and methodology, while local execution ensures authentic conversations. For this project, we ran fieldwork across the US, Germany, and Japan within the same timeframe — giving the client comparable, cross-cultural insights without extended timelines.
Why use ethnographic research for understanding streaming audiences?
Quantitative data tells you what people watch and for how long. Ethnographic research tells you why — and reveals the context that shapes behaviour. For streaming platforms, understanding the full entertainment journey (discovery, anticipation, consumption, sharing) requires seeing it happen in real life. Teens toggle between apps, respond to friend recommendations in real time, and make viewing decisions shaped by household dynamics that are invisible to analytics.
What is video ethnography and why is it valuable?
Video ethnography captures research participants on film during their natural interactions, creating a visual record of behaviour, emotion, and context. For clients, this footage is transformative — it brings findings to life in a way that written reports cannot. Product teams, designers, and executives can watch real users interacting with their platforms, making the research accessible and impactful across the organisation.
How do teen streaming habits differ across cultures?
Our cross-cultural research revealed both universal patterns and striking cultural differences. Across all markets, teens used short-form content as a discovery layer for longer viewing and valued peer recommendations over algorithmic suggestions. However, the specifics varied enormously — from Japan's "oshi-katsu" fandom culture centred on faceless creators, to different family co-viewing dynamics and screen-switching preferences in each market. These cultural nuances are precisely what multi-market research is designed to uncover.
How long does international ethnographic research typically take?
Timelines depend on the number of markets, participant criteria, and deliverable complexity. A study of this scope — three countries, dual interviews per household, video ethnography — can typically be completed within 4–6 weeks from briefing to final deliverables. Our simultaneous fieldwork model means adding markets doesn't proportionally extend timelines, and our single-point-of-contact approach keeps everything running smoothly.
What is the difference between ethnographic research and traditional focus groups?
Focus groups bring participants into a facility to discuss topics in a group setting — valuable for exploring attitudes and reactions. Ethnographic research goes into participants' own environments to observe natural behaviour. For understanding how teens use streaming platforms, the difference is significant: a focus group tells you what teens say they do; ethnographic research shows you what they actually do, including unconscious habits and contextual factors they'd never think to mention.
Can your research help with content strategy and product development?
Absolutely. Ethnographic insights directly inform content discovery and recommendation design, localisation strategy, family account features, advertising approaches, and user interface decisions. Because the research captures real behaviour in context, findings translate naturally into actionable product and content recommendations — not abstract theory.
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How do you recruit families for in-home research in different cultures?
Recruitment varies by market because cultural norms around hosting researchers differ significantly. In Japan, where inviting strangers into the home carries particular social weight, our local team recruited through trusted community networks. Across all markets, we screened for specific criteria — active multi-platform teens, engaged parents, regular family viewing habits — to ensure every household would yield rich, relevant data. Precise recruitment is what separates meaningful ethnographic research from generic observation.
What can ethnographic research reveal that surveys and analytics cannot?
Surveys capture what people say they do. Analytics capture what platforms track them doing. Ethnographic research captures everything in between — the context, the contradictions, the unconscious habits, and the cultural dynamics that shape real behaviour. In this study, analytics showed teens switching between platforms, but only ethnographic observation revealed why (short-form as a discovery layer) and what else was happening (second-screening during family viewing, peer influence through messaging apps). That contextual depth is what turns data into actionable understanding.
