Editor's note: Winslow "Bud" Johnson is president of the Stamford Marketing Group, a Stamford, Conn., consulting firm specializing in qualitative research.

The new product manager sat behind a one-way mirror watching a focus group evaluate his new investment product, which represented a unique new way for people to invest their money. The moderator had the respondents build collages to help identify perceptions of the new investment product. This same procedure had been used in a series of groups all across the country, and this was the last group in the series.

The moderator divided the focus group into two subgroups representing teams A and B. They were then told that they were to work with their respective team members to build a collage that described the new financial concept.

The moderator asked them to think hard about the new product. He asked them to think about everything that had been said so far about the product, and everything they now knew about it. He asked them to think about how they might describe this new investment option to the first person they met after leaving the group discussion.

The moderator then passed out a magazine containing a lot of pictures (such as People and Good Housekeeping) to each respondent. None of the magazines were directly related to the topic of finance. The idea was to get them to think broadly about the concept. He had them go through the magazines and cut out as many pictures as they could that helped them visualize the new investment concept.

The next step was to ask each subgroup to sort through the pictures and determine which ones described the essence of the new financial product. The moderator then had them build collages, using a glue stick to paste the most descriptive picture in the center of a large sheet of paper on an easel pad, surrounded by the other relevant pictures. Each subgroup created its own collage. Finally, he had each subgroup appoint a spokesperson, who described the collage the group had just created.

Some of the same types of pictures kept appearing in the different collages in every focus group. One frequently repeated picture was of some sort of a clock or timing device. There were also a lot of warning flags and symbols.

When they were asked to describe their collages, respondents often said that they saw this new financial product as an excellent way for people to start saving early for their retirement. The product was seen as a painless way to begin investing and an ideal vehicle to motivate younger people to start their retirement saving "before it's too late." This helped develop a hypothesis regarding the target market for the product as well as the overall marketing positioning. The product manager now felt comfortable in moving to the next step.

Projective techniques

Karen Predow, division manager of customer sciences at AT&T, believes that one of the limitations of direct questions is that you can only ask what you already know. She believes that projective techniques, such as the collage-making described above, can help you get past what you already know. "I think we are past the stage where we go to research just to confirm hypotheses," Predow says. "It is now very much generation of hypotheses. We often go to research with two or three hypotheses, we confirm two of them, and then we go to quantitative. Now we are in a space where you can't simply play the game that way. You have to be open to things that you had not even thought about.

"Respondents don't really think about a corporation's character, or its brand image per se. They will tend to talk about what they know about the company or its reputation. When you want to get something on more of an emotional level you need those [projective techniques] to help you really understand the customer's viewpoint. They are also valuable when you are asking respondents to evaluate or help you design something that doesn't exist yet."

Dean Shulman, senior vice president, Brother International Corporation, agrees with Predow that projective techniques can be a great way to get people to say what they are really thinking. "Projective techniques allow them to express opinions about something without offending. Most people know that there are people watching on the other side of the glass, and you always run the risk of the 'please factor' or the opposite. Some people feel they have to tell you what is wrong with a product, and others feel they are on stage and better perform well. Projective techniques kind of take them off of that thought pattern," he says.

Specific benefits of the collage

Kathy Hardy, associate director of the AARP Research Group, believes that one advantage of the collage is that it can help to jump-start the discussion. "It can take the full two hours to pull out of people the kind of information we can obtain quickly up front using the collage," Hardy says.

In addition, she says, collage-making can help obtain sensitive information. "Depending on the topic, you may have people who are unwilling to communicate because the topic may be too personal, or they don't want to be confrontational. This tool is another way for someone to contribute to a group discussion where they may not normally be willing to jump in with remarks."

Hardy also sees the collage as a tool for communicating the final results of a focus group to those who did not attend the groups. She has posted the collages created by respondents on the walls of meeting rooms to clarify points made during the groups. "When we presented the findings, there was quite a bit of interest in the collage. That became a tool for communicating the findings to my internal clients," she says.

Predow likes the idea of the visual stimuli in the collage technique. "You get information from the kinds of pictures they select relative to the questions they have been asked to address. Second, it gives you another way to probe. You can ask them, 'What does that mean?' Third, you can see how the group puts it together. You get the individual's input from the kinds of pictures they put up, and then when they are working together you begin to get a sense of views, images, or how ideas might come together in a group of customers that have some common traits. This provides the best of both worlds. The individuals get the opportunity to select the kinds of pictures that are relevant and meaningful to them, and you get a chance to see how they work together to come up with a common image."

Predow adds, "With the collage there are a number of levels of learning. Even the pictures they select in the first place are valuable. When they start putting it together you can see how that may come together in a way that words just cannot fulfill. Then I have an opportunity to have them tell me what they think is happening up there. I think that is a pretty efficient use of time."

The visual stimuli are an important aspect of the collage technique, Shulman says. "Some people have difficulty expressing a straightforward answer. They are not sure what answer you are looking for. By building the collage, it allows them to express themselves. To me, it is always interesting to see what pictures they pull out and how they describe them. If everyone agrees that this particular picture represents loyalty, it gives me an idea of what kind of images make sense. This is plus the benefit of having them verbalize what they are really thinking about loyalty."

Uses of the collage

Stewart Schwartz, manager, consumer understanding, Unilever Home & Personal Care - USA, sees the collage as an effective way to identify the image of a brand. He also sees using it to develop a profile of the type of customer that might buy a product. "I have seen it used as a brainstorming technique, sometimes to present pictures that have nothing to do with the subject. We were trying to come up with a new name for a fragrance, and one of the techniques we used was to pass out pictures of objects that had nothing to do with fragrance. Sometimes going away from the problem may spark an idea," Schwartz says.

Predow agrees that the collage is good for brand imagery work. She also feels that it can be quite effective in the development of concepts, deciding, for example, what kinds of benefits or features a product might have to have. "This can be particularly important in a category like ours [telecommunications], where we are really evolving. What the user experiences today will be totally different in about 18 months. The collage would allow me to get further than I could with just a white card description of the concept.

"I think you can create with consumers by understanding what your possibilities are and having them direct you to where you should be moving those possibilities. I think they will articulate, in ways that we could not even imagine, what the voids are and what their needs are. To some degree projective techniques help us get there. Sometimes there are ways to make things better, but even the user can't quite figure it out. They don't even know it's possible to be better, or that it is not working as well as it could be."

When developing concepts, Shulman begins such work by looking for problems that the consumer is having with a product category. "When we got into the fax market, we asked people what they didn't like about faxing. One thing that came out was they didn't like the paper. It came out curled, and you could not write on it. That is what we based our first generation of product on. With the collage, as we look at a market, we can ask what people don't like about a particular area of interest."

Time well-spent

It obviously takes time to go through the collage process in a focus group. Schwartz typically allows 20-30 minutes for collages out of a two-hour group. He feels the time is worth it. "I'm not sure that I know a shorter way to do it. If there is, certainly I'd be open to it. It takes time when there is a group effort. You just have to allow for it. I think the payoff comes from consistency from group to group. If you keep seeing the same pictures across groups, then you tend to have a feeling that it is working and there is probably something to it, and it makes you feel that the time you've spent is worthwhile."

"My view of two hours is that I've got this group of consumers that are going to give me 120 minutes worth of insight," Predow says. "I have to structure that two hours so that I get the most energy where I need it. One of the things I like about projective techniques is that they minimize wear-out. Somehow direct questioning tires folks out a lot more than when they get engaged and involved in projective techniques. They are probably perceived as a more fun-filled experience."

Hardy cautions that there are times when the collage should not be used. "A collage would not work in circumstances where every second is taken up in the discussion guide. It should be in a toolbox, and it should be used depending on the client, the issues on the table, the sensitivity, and participant creativity. It might not be used every time, but it is certainly something that should be considered," she says.

Correct interpretation is critical

Shulman advises that interpretation of the group is extremely important. "For me, analysis of a focus group is weighing what they say, and not just taking verbatim what they say. You want to try to get a sense of their feelings."

Schwartz agrees that interpretation is critical. "You have to use your judgement about what they are saying and if it makes sense or not. I can only get to that by listening to what people are saying."

He cites as an example respondents who are selecting pictures of typical product users. "Are they trying to make themselves look good by describing their own user or is that what they really feel? You have to look at the user you see in those groups, versus the collages that they build."

Limitations

As with any qualitative research, the collage does have its limitations. "I would not run from the facility with the insight and make a $42 million investment decision," Predow says. "I am going to do some other things with that information. But I do have a lot more depth. I've got some dimensions to the understanding of the customer and what their issues are. I guess it is just being aware of the limitations of projecting the insights straightforwardly to a larger population. But that is a misuse of projective techniques in the first place.

"Projective techniques are to give you more insights, to stimulate your thinking to have a better understanding of the issues at hand. It is important to recognize that you are going to have some skew from your respondents not being fully representative of the larger marketplace. That is why you got them there in the first place. Now the challenge is how to appropriately use that insight, how to incorporate it into a new product idea," Predow says.