According to psychoanalysis, people suppress their unfulfilled impulses and desires, or unresolvable conflicts and anxieties, and so on, and they become part of their subconscious. This leads to direct questioning research, where subjects often consciously or unconsciously misinterpret, misinterpret, or misdirect the researcher. Instead, the projective testing technique is used to provide vague and ambiguous materials to the subject, arousing the subject's associations and allowing him to project his deep inner motives, emotions, and values as well as his inner anxieties and conflicts unconsciously.
There are a lot of projection tests applied in market research: free association/word association, brand anthropomorphism, user image/purchaser image, brand party, jigsaw technique, brand planet/brand travel/brand world, factory/company/office visit, shopping basket, analogy, brand classification, role-playing/image transfer of brand and human organs, bubble chart, epitaph, brand Family, Brand Manager, Brand Image House ......
At the level of business application, the projective method can help to understand: consumer purchase motivation, brand image, brand naming, awareness surveys, advertising effectiveness research, advertising copy development or evaluation, product/service evaluation... ...
Concept : Present the respondent with a series of unconnected words, pictures, samples, scenes, and ask the respondent to name the associative content triggered by each stimulus. And explain.
Classification :
① Totally free association : No conditions are set, and the respondent is asked and pursued for relevant responses.
② Limited free association: can be distinguished as a limited expression, such as "a sentence", "a word", "a paragraph", "a novel"; can also be limited to the number or time, such as "the first thought", "think of the first three people who?"; can also be limited to the field of association. It can also be limited to the field of association, such as "What is the brand name of the product that comes to mind?", "What is the most important brand name that comes to mind?", "What is the most important brand that comes to mind? "Who is the person who best represents this company?".
Applicable to
Application: The association method is often used to compare, evaluate and test the brand: awareness, brand image and advertising terms. Discover core words that are relevant and have special value.
Evaluation: The word association method is relatively simple and easy to use, can quickly collect a large amount of information, and is relatively easy to analyze, and is a relatively effective projection technique in research.
Example 1: Brand Image Research
When you mention "Coca-Cola", what are the first three words that come to your mind? (Follow-up question: What reminds you of the words a, b, and c)
Example 2: Brand Awareness Research
When you think of laptops, what are the first three brands that come to mind?
Example 3: Brand Naming
Given three alternative names for a pure water brand: Crave, Pure Dew, and Clear, ask respondents to say what they associate with each name to understand what impression each name brings to the consumer
Example 4: Creative Advertising - Benefit Chain Technique
Ask users to list the benefits a product/brand provides, and then list those benefits. benefits that a product/brand can provide, then list the benefits that those benefits can provide, and so on until the consumer can't list any more benefits.
For example, for a particular brand of vitamins, a consumer might list "fewer colds" as one of the benefits, followed by "work efficiency" and "more energy". "Another subject lists "looking better"; both believe the vitamin reduces colds, but for different purposes. Assuming that the two consumers above represent two typical consumer groups, the advertisements should be targeted differently to the two groups of consumers.
(1) Sentence Completion Method
Concept: Sentence Completion Method is similar to the word association method, which provides users with some incomplete sentences and asks them to fill in the sentences. After completing the sentence, you need to explain the reason for filling in the content, from which you can understand the inner thoughts of consumers (needs, motivations).
In market research, if you use questionnaires or interviews to investigate the reasons why consumers buy Cadillacs, many consumers will say that the car is fast or noble. With the statement completion method can be designed as follows: "people who buy Cadillac _______". If the completion is affluent, it can be interpreted that the person who buys the car is in a motivation to show off, and if the completion is glamorous, it can be interpreted as a motivation to be sexy.
Evaluation : Sentence completion provides a more direct stimulus to the subject than word association, and more information about the subject's affective aspects may be obtained from story completion. However, sentence completion is not as covert as word association and many subjects may guess the purpose of the study.
Example: Lipton Tea, interested in expanding its market to 13- to 19-year-olds, assembled high school students and instructed them to complete the following sentences.
① Hot tea drinkers are _______;?
② Tea is a good drink when _______;?
③ My friends think tea is ________.
④ When I am thirsty, I want to drink ________.
(2) Story Completion Method
Concept : Another type of sentence completion is paragraph completion, i.e., story completion: the user is given an unfinished story and is asked to finish the story, so that he or she can learn what the consumer himself or herself is really thinking (a part of the story given to the subject should be enough to draw the user's attention to a particular topic, but do not hint at the end of the story )
Evaluation: The completion method, like the word association method, is relatively simple and easy to use, and can quickly collect a large amount of information; and the form is more vivid and lively, which is easy to arouse the interest of the interviewee's participation. However, it is relatively more difficult to analyze.
Example:
In a survey study of customer patronage in department stores, subjects were asked to complete the following story: a man was buying a suit in one of his favorite department stores. After spending 45 minutes and trying on several suits, he finally selects one. As he heads to the counter, a clerk comes over and says, "Sir, we now have reduced-price suits, same price but higher quality. Would you like to take a look? "The question is: What was this consumer's reaction? Why? The story completed by the subject reveals his or her attitude toward the relative value aspect of spending time picking out the item, as well as his or her emotional investment behavior in shopping.
(3) Situational dialog method
Concept: also known as the bubble chart method, cartoon test method. Cartoon characters are displayed in a specific environment related to the problem. Subjects are asked to indicate how a cartoon character would answer a question or comment from another character. From the subject's answers it is possible to indicate ta feelings, beliefs, and attitudes about the setting or situation.
(4) Stranger Conversation Method → Alien Method
Concept: Suppose you need to introduce a product to a person who has no idea about the target product, this scenario makes both sides of the conversation to unify themselves into the "try to be as detailed as possible, because he is a complete amateur" In this kind of psychological conditions, the results of the interview are more in line with the researcher's expectations. Under such psychological conditions, the interview results are more in line with the researcher's expectations. It can even be assumed that the interviewees are aliens, in which case the presentation of information may be richer. In general, the informant's thoroughness is inversely proportional to the degree of knowledge he or she assumes the subject possesses. This role assumption method can also be used in other areas, such as assuming that you communicate with:
① a friend of yours, who is buying a similar product;
② a consumer association staff, you comment on this product;
③ with you to buy the same kind of product, you communicate with him on the topic of
Example:
Concept : Also known as the personification method. Let the user imagine the brand or product as a person, and describe TA's gender, age, occupation, dress, hobbies, personality traits, economic class, interpersonal relationships (what kind of friends, what kind of family), do you like to be with TA; what kind of people will like TA, and what kind of people will dislike TA; what kind of situation do you most want to be with TA?
Application : Can be used to understand the brand / product image, tone. Consistency with the company's strategy, differentiation analysis with similar brands. The operation can be asked individually about the image of a brand, but also compared with other similar brands.
Example 1:
Example 2:
Just now we know a lot of job board brands, usually we have a different impression of different brands, assuming that a product brand can be imagined as a person, there is a certain appearance and looks, behavior and demeanor in a certain way, there are some specific values and characteristics.
For example, when it comes to the Agricultural Bank of China, we will think of it as a hard-working, simple but lack of innovation, middle-aged man, conformist, lack of wealth, but a very safe and stable image; while the China Merchants Bank is a young man, flexible, avant-garde, sensitive to changes in the outside world, and easy to grasp the pulse of the market, always appearing in some of the occasions of the young, fashionable, wealth dramas.
Now if you imagine each job board brand as a person, what kind of person do you think he/she is? Please describe a brand that you yourself are most familiar with or favor.
Concept : Also known as the analogical method, or anthropomorphic association, the respondent is asked to imagine the target thing as something extremely familiar in life, and then asked to explain the reasons for his such an analogy, and to find out the similarities and differences between the analogous things. Note that the analogies to the target should be things that are extremely familiar to the participants, such as colors, animals, plants, objects, gadgets, or furniture. Also note that respondents should also be invited to explain their analogies.
Application : Same as anthropomorphism, to understand the image and tone of the brand/product in the minds of consumers, and whether it is consistent with the strategic expectations.
Example 1: Employee Service Evaluation
What do you think the service staff you meet in a newly opened theme park would be if they were animals? (Follow-up) Why would you choose these animals?
Example 2: Brand Image Evaluation
If you think of Alipay as an animal, what animal do you think Alipay is most likely to be? (Follow-up) In what ways is this animal similar to Alipay, and in what ways is it completely different?
Concept: Also known as contextualization, focus shifting, changing the focus of discussion from the subject to others. Providing the subject with a literal or figurative scenario allows the subject to avoid the direct connection between the phenomenon in question and his or her own surface, mitigating the moral degradation effect of the self, and also helps to formulate the question more clearly, making it easy for the respondent to give an answer.
When using this method, further information about the subjects' life background should be collected through prior research in order to try to design scenarios that create a sense of familiarity and intimacy with the subject group. The other person/third party may be a friend, neighbor, colleague, or some kind of "typical" person.
Application: When it comes to the discussion of sensitive topics such as sex, gray income, corruption, beliefs, work performance, evaluation of authority, etc., focus shifting is more authentic than direct questioning.
Example 1: Zhang San method (the purpose of the study is easy to guess)
"Are you personally willing or happy to participate in company-organized training during your off-duty breaks?" →? " The company organized a training for the improvement of the on-site management skills of the hall manager on Saturday morning, and Wang XX, the hall manager of the XX Road business hall, refused to participate on the grounds that Saturday is the staff's rest time rather than working time. What do you think about this matter?"
Example 2: shopping list method (the purpose of the study is more hidden)
Nestlé instant coffee At the beginning of the promotion, the market was cold, and the initial research found that the main reason for coffee consumers not to buy is that "hand-brewed coffee is better," but the results of the taste test disproved that reason. Under the guidance of psychologist Hale of the University of California, a projective technique was adopted to re-investigate the market: two shopping tickets were shown to randomly assigned consumers, one for instant coffee and the other for coffee beans, and the rest of the shopping commodities were kept the same. Consumers were asked to write down the characteristics of the owner who chose each of the two tickets. The results found that: instant coffee ticket housewife get the description of "lazy, sloppy, life without a plan, spendthrift", while the hand-brewed coffee ticket housewife get the description of "thrifty, life-oriented, experienced". After this, Nestle suddenly realized: housewives do not think instant coffee tastes bad, but do not want to be labeled as "lazy" and "not good at housekeeping". As a result, Nestle no longer emphasized on saving time and effort, but promoted the idea that "using instant coffee gives you more time to do more things". In this way, it can change consumers' perception and thus their behavior
Read more: Nestle Instant Coffee Study
Concept: It means that the respondents are asked to select words/pictures that match the things they want to describe from a lot of pictures or adjectives that are provided to them.
Application : Research on the consistency between brand image and target users
Example: The photo categorization method (Photosort) developed by Global BBDO, the largest advertising agency in the United States, is a good example of the categorization projection technique. The respondent is given a set of photos showing different types of people, such as white-collar workers, laborers, college students, etc., and is asked to put the photos together with the brands he thinks the person should use. A photo categorization survey of General Electric found that respondents thought the brand appealed to older, more conservative business people, and in order to change this image, General Electric ran a "brighten up your life" campaign
Concept : Specify a few brands or products (usually 3, the brand under test and its competitors). and its competitors). Ask respondents to imagine that there are 3 people in a supermarket, each pushing a shopping cart. Each of them is already carrying a product (one of the 3 brands). Next, imagine if the 3 people continue shopping, and then ask the respondents to imagine what else would be in their cart or shopping basket when they reach the checkout counter, i.e. what other products they would have picked up that would have been better suited to be placed alongside the item in the cart.
Application : Mainly used to understand the social attributes of brand image, from the consumer consumption pattern to explore the consumer's identification with the brand value.
Example: shopping baskets of three brands
Coca-Cola: household cleaning products, household cling film, Tide laundry detergent, Humorist magazine, Chinese soccer team uniforms, Twins' MTV video, Chinese knots, red tablecloths, soccer balls, refreshing shower gel, cartoon character toys (Snoopy, etc.), popsicles ......
Pepsi : cartoon character toys (Slam Dunker, etc.), fashionable backpacks, Nicholas Tse's records, Adidas soccer balls, tennis rackets, scooters, Nike sneakers, Hershey's mints, Bleach Shampoo .......
Very Cola : Vegetables, Meat, Eagle Soap, Bee Flower Shampoo, VCDs of Domestic TV Series, Pirated CDs, Black Sister Toothpaste, Dumplings ...
By the basket of choices, we can analyze that the positioning of the most clear is Pepsi, fashionable young people have the equipment basically reflected in the Pepsi shopping basket of the brands or products in the attributes of the superposition of the product itself, has been able to fully express the Pepsi's "young, dynamic, trendy," the brand personality. The brand personality of Very Cola is also very strong. The brand personality of Very Cola is also very clear. As a brand targeting the secondary and tertiary markets, the brand personality of Very Cola, which is "friendly, simple and even a bit rustic", is revealed through the items in the shopping cart. Finally, it seems that it is not easy to find any pattern in Coca-Cola's shopping basket, but we can't arbitrarily think that the information reflected in this shopping basket is worthless. By analyzing the shopping basket in depth, we can find that Coca-Cola's brand image has been widely penetrated into families and accepted by family members; the brand personality has added some localized Chinese personalities (e.g., Chinese knots); and it reveals a "festive, joyful, and atmospheric" brand personality.
Concept : Ask the respondents to describe the image of a typical user of a certain brand, including: gender, age, appearance and clothing, personality traits, values and attitudes, hobbies, occupation, family status; how does the buyer pay? How does he or she get home? What kind of home does he go to? What kind of people does he live with? What kind of friends does he have? What about other lifestyles?
Application: Great for FMCG. Used to understand the profile of users of a particular brand, as well as their personality, socio-demographic and consumer mindset characteristics. Useful for detecting target consumer segments, as well as consumer acceptance.
Concept : Respondents are asked to assume that a range of brands/products/services/companies ...... are members of the same family, and then to answer the following questions:
How do they relate to each other? Who is older and more prestigious? Who is younger? Who is more active? Who is more quiet? Who is the hope of the family? Who is the loser? What ****ing interests are shared in the family? What are the occupations of each of the family members? Who is on better terms with whom? Who is at loggerheads with whom? What topics do they usually like to talk about?......
Application : It is suitable for identifying the contribution of different products to the brand image and understanding the historical cycle of the brand. It can also be used to understand the performance of different brands in the same category.
Concept : Imagine a variety of brands to run a party, that is, a variety of brands to anthropomorphic identity to participate in the party, so that people imagine: who is the host / initiator / organizer, what kind of party held by the brand, where the party was held, who chose the music, what type of music, a variety of brands were wearing what kind of clothes, who and who in the conversation & talk about what, who is the focus of attention, who will be more cold. who is the center of attention, who is left out &alone in the corner, who is bored &wants the party to be over as soon as possible, what is the demeanor of each brand, what happens at the party.
Evaluation : brand party, did not find much relevant information on the Internet, privately thought that the implementation is very difficult, for the user does not provide enough scenarios to substitute, difficult to imagine, for analysts to analyze the difficulty of geometric growth.
Concept : Let the interviewee imagine roaming in a corridor, and then walk to a room, the name of the room is a certain brand (if there is more than one brand for comparison, you can say that there are two rooms, three or even more, and each room is named after a specific brand), and then ask them to imagine that they have walked into the room, and then look very carefully at the various details of the room, and then ask the respondents to describe the scene they saw in the house.
Application : Advertising and Marketing Decision Making
Enter a long walkway with many doors on both sides, one of which says XX (a sporting goods brand). Push the door in, and you'll see lots of sports stars, lots of sports equipment, lots of fans, but that's not where you're going. Close the door, another door says XX (a brand of cigarettes), and you find a vast expanse of mountains, cowboys, and horses, but that's not where you're going either, close the door. Now you find a door that says Force Wave, and that's where you're going. Push the door open, walk in, look closely and tell us about what you see in your mind.
Concept: Present the respondents with several brands in a category. Ask them to group them freely / or group them by some specific criteria that the brand values highly. After grouping, for each category, ask: What criteria did you use to differentiate? Why do you differentiate in this way? What do you call these specific categories? What are the specific (strengths/weaknesses) of the products in this category? What kind of people like this category? What are the similarities and differences between products in this category and others?
Application: To help us understand the relative relationship between competing brands in the market, and to understand how consumers identify with different brand attributes, so that we can segment the market from a consumer perspective.
Example: beer brand classification
640ml or so glass bottles, tear off the price tag. Such as: Lippo, Budweiser, Lake, Beck, Shihao, Suntory, Tsingtao, Pearl River, Heineken, Shubo Le, Kirin, Yanjing, etc. According to the product grade: high-grade, mid-range, low-grade;? According to the taste intensity: light flavor, strong flavor;? By domestic/imported;? According to the favorite crowd: young people, the elderly; according to drinking occasions: bars, stalls, medium and high-end restaurants;? By advertising: advertised, unadvertised
Concept : Ask the respondent to imagine that he or she has visited the factory or headquarters of a brand. Along the whole sequence of the visit, ask the interviewee to describe the factory/company
Application : By associating the scene of the factory/company/office, to understand the promotion/inhibition of corporate image to the brand image.
You have received an invitation to visit company a. Now that you have arrived at the entrance of the company, how does the entrance of this company look like? How about the first impression? How is the overall environment of this company? A staff member receives you, how is the demeanor of this receptionist? Then you met more staff members, what was the appearance and spirit of these staff members like?
Concept : Also known as the obituary method, the interviewee is asked to imagine that if a brand or product suddenly left this world, we held a funeral for it. Ask the respondent to visualize and then answer: How did the brand or product die? What would be written on its epitaph? What would be written in the eulogy at the memorial service? （Who would read the eulogy? Who will attend the brand's funeral? Who won't? Who will attend but not feel sad? What will people miss most about the brand? What will be said at the funeral? What secrets will be buried with it? What will happen to the world after its death? Will it be the way we all want it to be?
Note: Sometimes it is not necessary to ask the whole set of questions, just let the interviewee imagine the epitaph.
Application: Provide a context for respondents to fully review and describe the strengths and weaknesses, personality, and competitiveness of the brand or product in their mind. Even further, this technique can be utilized to understand the opportunity points of a new brand or product, such as letting the respondents envision what kind of brand or product will take its place after the brand or product ceases to exist; what problems should be noted by new similar products if they want to replace or surpass it, and so on. Depending on the purpose, many new questions can be designed.
Book: Yuan Yue "breaking the ice of in-depth interviews"
Wang Yin Yin: do not lie to me - talk about the detection technology
Qualitative research projection methods
User interview techniques: from "a question and answer" to "
The application of projective techniques in user interviews
The application of projective testing techniques in business surveys
The application of projective methods in the study of automobile brands
The application of image projection methods in the research of visual style of the QQ member website Utilization
Projective techniques and their application in the field of market research
Market Research Methods - Projective Methods
Projective Techniques Method
Projective Techniques (190 pages)