Editor's note: Mike Anastas is president of Focus Probe Inc., a New York City qualitative research firm.

Moderators are increasingly using projective techniques in qualitative research, especially photos and artwork to help respondents achieve new levels of self-expression. At the October convention of the Qualitative Research Consultants Association in Chicago, novice moderators asked those of us who regularly use visual stimuli to tell them more about how it's done.

What we told them was simple: Visuals jump-start consumers' imaginations and verbal responsiveness. When asked a question like, "What are your feelings when you use this product?" some consumers become tense and anxious because they seldom get to express feelings about anything, let alone a commonplace product. When asked, "Select a picture and tell how it shows your feelings when you use the product," they relax and launch into complex stories.

Alfred Goldman, a leader in the field of quantitative research, says drawings and photographs are consistently useful projective devices. In The Group Depth Interview, Principles and Practices, he and Susan Schwartz McDonald advocate the use of artwork to probe subconscious attitudes:

"Like any projective technique this one liberates participants from inhibitions about expressing their own preferences or opinions, while also concretizing associations they might not be able to express without the aid of picture."

There are many advantages to visual stimuli. Pictures and artwork can:

  • inspire consumers to tell richer, more emotional stories than verbal questions alone;
  • arouse the creative right side of the brain better than logic-driven left-brain questions;
  • help shy and inarticulate consumers who are not comfortable discussing emotional motivations express themselves.

Consumers are not always on our verbal wavelength but pictures help unite us. We often recruit average Americans, line them up in focus rooms, then riddle them with complex questions such as, "What personality do you feel is projected by this logotype?" Give Americans a break. Researchers should make it easy for them by using pictures instead of words.

Decode questions

We all know the saying, "A picture is worth 1,000 words." Visuals help consumers decode questions they sometimes find too abstract to understand or too confusing to answer, especially if their language skills are not as well developed as we expect.

The basic problem is that most qualitative researchers are verbally advantaged and visually challenged. We sailed through school and conquered business on the wings of our exceptional verbal abilities. Not many graphic designers or art directors become moderators, but we should borrow some of their tricks for our trade. Photos and artwork in qualitative research can be especially rewarding and eye-opening, and visual stimuli are relatively easily assembled and adminis-tered.

Decades ago, consumer researchers used stereotypical portraits of nurses, farmers or stockbrokers to quantify brand images. Now we use photos and symbols randomly clipped from magazines to reach for a deeper level of emotional awareness and expression. Pictures can generate those heavenly breakthroughs of discovery, when a respondent says, "You know, I never realized that before! " and an observer says, "You know, we never learned that before!"

In Qualitative Market Research, A Practitioner's and Buyer's Guide, Wendy Gordon and Roy Langmaid describe many different projective tools that can be used to reveal beliefs and feelings, including random piles of words and pictures cut out of magazines. Respondents choose the ones they associate with a particular brand or product and explain their choices.

"The exercise allows the researcher to discover the more emotional responses to brands and their imagery. Respondents choose words and pictures that demonstrate their beliefs and feelings about a brand which would otherwise be difficult to articulate."

To explore specific aspects of a brand's personality, Gordon and Langmaid suggest designing collage boards with selected photos and symbols to provide consumers with open-ended image options. You can focus on one aspect of a brand or category, such as potency, by selecting specific images to reflect that aspect.

"Visual collage boards can be designed to explore abstract concepts such as romance, freshness, modernity, wisdom, balance and many more. They can also be used to understand the most meaningful symbols for a particular brand."

Turn "I don't know" into "Lemme tell ya"

You can become sold on the use of visual stimuli the first time you follow a verbal question with a picture-based question on the same topic. The difference in responsiveness is amazing. For example:

For a series of focus groups with interactive video game players, we used traditional benefit laddering techniques to probe primary benefits, the importance of each benefit and the emotional payoff or value of each benefit. You could tell from the participants' disinterest that most of them wanted to escape. Then we gave each respondent color copies of a photo collage with 75 different emotional reactions, ranging from the euphoria of winning a race to the exertion and strain of a tug of war. The groups came alive like children at a picnic. Each respondent told a colorful story describing how it feels to use the product and why it is such an important part of their lives, based on a selected photo.

To explore the benefits of chewing gum among teenagers, we set up a wall of photos that teenage gum chewers had clipped from magazines (supplemented with additional photos we had selected). I especially remember one introverted young fellow in Mesquite, Tex. You know him, he's the one with the turned-around baseball cap who speaks only in monosyllables: "Yup," "Nope" and "Don' know." His whole demeanor changed when I asked him to select two or three photos that showed what he felt when he chewed gum. He talked for seven minutes straight, without probing, about his picture and his gum and his routine and his outlook on life. I have it all on videotape.

In another exploratory among teenagers, we were trying to define the personality of a brand, so I asked, "What personality would you say that brand has?" The youngster looked me in the eye and shook his head wordlessly. He didn't know what personality meant. Then I displayed pictures of various demographic groups and asked, "If the brand were a person, who would it be?" In a flash, he said one brand was a young skateboarder who takes chances and has a great time with his friends, and that another brand was a librarian who wears funny shoes. With joy and confidence, he described the distinct profiles of four major brands, using the photos as his guide.

Cutting and pasting is child's play

Making up photo montages or random photo sorts is fun. When there is time and opportunity, ask actual users to clip magazine photos that illustrate benefits and feelings about the particular category, then supplement their photos with your own. Some moderators keep vast files of interesting photos, but I'm not that organized. I keep stacks of photo magazines that show a wide variety of people and emotions, avoiding celebrities or sports stars who project other symbols. Look at medical trade journals for pictures of suffering, shelter books for blissful consumers, sports journals for a ranges of emotions and foreign magazines for all kinds of surprises.

Some moderators use as few 10 or 15 large photos that can be shown to the entire group at once. Some put a pile of random magazine clippings on the table and ask respondents to pick a clip. In some cases, it is desirable to show sets of occupations, automobiles, sports activities and houses as a way to personify different brand images. I like to use a photo montage of images related to the particular category.

After you collect the photos for a montage, select and mount them on stiff legal-sized paper with stick-on numbers to code each photo. Magazine photos make great color photocopies, so each individual in the group can have a set. Vary the order of pages to achieve variety and make extra sets for observers behind the mirror.

One final note: Clients should not get hung up on which photos everyone selects, but rather should listen carefully to the stories those photos evoke. The photos are not definitions of a brand's image and should not start creeping into advertising. The photos and artwork are simply a wonderful way to visit our respondents' subconscious feelings and perceptions.

Experiment with your friends

If you feel uncertain about using photos in qualitative research, assemble a set at random and use them as a parlor game with your friends or family. Once you see how easy to use and stimulating photos can be, you'll include them in your qualitative arsenal.

References:

Goldman, A.E. and McDonald, S.S. The Group Depth Interview. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1987.

Gordon, W. and Langmaid, R. Qualitative Market Research, A Practitioner's and Buyer's Guide. Brookfield, Vermont: Gower Publishing Company, 1988.