How has the ethnographic method been integrated into market research?This question was originated around the interest of knowing the evolution of strictness in the proper practice of ethnography to obtain consumer knowledge in marketing.An answer to this question is presented, based on a documentary review on the historical application's development of ethnography in its business use at a global and national levels.Contrasts and similarities are proposed by comparing characteristics and social phenomena studied, which allowed to establish that integration is still under construction both face-toface and digitally; as well as that the legitimacy of the results are questioned given the shorter dedication of time and the fragmentation of coexistence with the protagonists of the social phenomenon under study that affect the strictness in the application of the scientific method and on the economic viability of the business project.