International Journal of Consumer Studies ISSN 1470-6423
Using projective techniques to tap into consumers’ feelings, perceptions and attitudes . . . getting an honest opinion ijcs_880
400..404
Susan Doherty1,2 and Roy Nelson1,2 1
College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (Loughry Campus), Cookstown, Co., Tyrone, UK School of Biological Sciences, Queens University of Belfast, Belfast, UK
2
Keywords Projective techniques, cartoon friends, personification, word association, customer loyalty, food retail. Correspondence Susan Doherty, College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise, Loughry Campus, Cookstown, Co., Tyrone BT80 9AA, UK. E-mail:
[email protected]
Abstract An investigation into customer loyalty to food retailers posed a methodological problem – namely how to delve beneath the surface and access consumers’ unspoken feelings, perceptions, attitudes and values. This paper explains how four different projective techniques were used to access the thoughts and feelings of 160 interviewees in order to obtain a thorough understanding of the interviewees’ satisfaction with their ‘main’ food retailer and to characterize the relationship between the customer and retailer. A brief description of the use, analysis and examples of cartoon friends, word association, personification and mini case studies was provided in order to describe their role in the data collection process.
doi: 10.1111/j.1470-6431.2010.00880.x
Introduction Marketers strive to understand consumers’ feelings, perceptions, motives and attitudes that drive customer loyalty to a particular product, brand or retailer. An investigation into customer loyalty to food retailers in Northern Ireland (Doherty and Nelson, 2008) posed a methodological problem – namely how to delve beneath the surface to obtain a thorough understanding of the interviewees’ satisfaction with their ‘main’ food retailer and to characterize the relationship between the customer and retailer. Conventional or more traditional methods of data collection usually involve respondents completing a survey questionnaire via a set of direct questions posed to them by a researcher. It has been reported widely that this yields only limited information as the subject matter is not investigated in depth (Catterall and Ibbotson, 2000) and also, self-reported measures relating to attitudes and behaviour are prone to bias (Steinman, 2009). In addition, it has been noted that ‘in a typical interview, the subjects do not always share their innermost feelings with the researcher – who is after all a stranger’ (Donoghue, 2000, p. 48). It may also be the case that the interviewees are actually unaware of their underlying motives and attitudes when deciding where to shop. Instead of questioning them directly, the interviewees could be asked to respond in an indirect fashion, talking about other peoples’ feelings, attitudes and opinions in certain shopping situations. Steinman (2009, p. 38) suggests that the use of indirect questioning ‘enables the researcher to circumvent some of the common social barriers that inhibit the respondents’ expression of attitudes and behaviours’. Such barriers could include the interviewee’s fear of being judged in a negative manner by the researcher, the interviewee attempting 400
to present themselves in the best possible light and the tendency to offer answers that are socially acceptable when being interviewed. This investigation into customer loyalty will be used as a case study to illustrate the use of projective techniques as a research tool. There are a number of ‘contrasting’ approaches that can be applied to consumer studies, but all concur that when making a decision about the viability of any method chosen, six factors should always be borne in mind – namely relevance, feasibility, coverage, accuracy, objectivity and ethics. Recently, it has been noted that two further factors could be included – interest and motivation (Clough and Nutbrown, 2002). Traditionally, there has been a distinction drawn between positivism and constructivist/phenomenological approaches which tend to align themselves along this same continuum. Others have described this type of data from either end as either hard or soft (Walliman, 2005). A contrast can therefore be drawn between the ‘thin’ abstraction of information which results from quantitative data collection, and the ‘thick’ or ‘rich’ abstraction or description associated with qualitative data. Participants in a focus group or when completing a survey questionnaire may not always speak their true mind because of a number of possible reasons, including fear of being judged and the desire to please the interviewer or simply that they have no interest in the topic being investigated. Consequently, to understand true thoughts and motivations, it is sometimes necessary to adopt different approaches, and projective techniques are one example of a qualitative approach which can access consumers’ unspoken values by getting them to comment about an issue indirectly, thereby removing any inhibitions they may feel. They are ‘involving’ and fun for respondents and have the potential to
International Journal of Consumer Studies 34 (2010) 400–404 © The Authors Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
S. Doherty and R. Nelson
tap feelings, perceptions and attitudes that can be difficult to access by more direct questioning. Projective techniques may be quite varied but commonly include stimuli such as inkblots, pictures or incomplete sentences to which the interviewee responds. According to Kay (2001), projective techniques go beyond words to help people express themselves visually or in some other way that is emotionally driven. All have relevance to the individual’s life and use imagination to help us learn more about the individual. Kay also stated that respondents generally find the exercise rewarding and have little difficulty in discussing their emotions and their relationship to the product or issue. Five categories of projective techniques have been described (Linzey, 1959) based on the type of responses they elicit: • Associative techniques – interviewees are asked to respond to a stimulus with the first thing that comes to mind. • Construction techniques – require respondents to construct a picture or a story. • Completion techniques – the respondent is presented with an incomplete stimulus such as the beginning of a sentence and is asked to complete it or to complete thought and speech bubbles in a cartoon drawing. • Choice or ordering techniques – respondents select one from a list of alternatives or arrange materials or statements into some order. • Expressive techniques – respondents incorporate some stimulus into novel production such as role play. There are also drawbacks in the use of projective techniques in data collection, such as ethical concerns, issues of validity and reliability, concerns about the interpretation of the data and the choice and design of projective techniques themselves. However, there is considerable consistency in the responses obtained from projective techniques but less consistency in the interpretation of such responses (Catterall and Ibbotson, 2000). In a recent study on food retail loyalty (Doherty and Nelson, 2008), a mixed method approach was adopted. To begin with, a
Using projective techniques
short section recorded demographic details of 160 participants using a standard questionnaire format. The main data collection tool, however, involved the use of four projective techniques to access thoughts and feelings of the respondents with respect to the concept of loyalty. These were: 1 Cartoon friends (completion of speech and think bubbles) 2 Word association 3 Personification 4 Mini case studies. A brief description of the use, analysis and examples of each will now be given in order to describe their role in the data collection process.
‘Cartoon friends’ Cartoon friends involved respondents completing think bubbles. The cartoons pictured typical shopping situations that shoppers might find themselves in and the respondent was then asked to imagine how others may think or feel in the situation depicted. The technique was employed to provide an insight into interviewees’ perceptions of staff and other customers in the food store they use most. An example is shown in Fig. 1. Computer graphics were used to generate the characters, and a possible disadvantage of this is that the characters may have been too detailed. Interviewee task Examine the cartoon below and write your responses to the questions in the box provided. Imagine these characters are shopping in your ‘main’ food store. ‘Positive’ think bubble responses about ‘what she thinks about staff in the store’ consisted of comments such as ‘friendly’, ‘efficient’, ‘tidy uniforms’, ‘happy’, ‘knowledgeable’, ‘they are local’ and ‘I know them’. Whereas, negative comments included ‘staff not paying attention’, ‘too slow’, ‘wish operators would stop
Figure 1 Cartoon friends.
International Journal of Consumer Studies 34 (2010) 400–404 © The Authors Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
401
Using projective techniques
S. Doherty and R. Nelson
chatting’, ‘unhelpful, fed-up staff’, ‘want customers out quickly’, ‘tired staff’. Think bubble responses to ‘What is the cartoon friend thinking about the other customers in the store?’ included: ‘like me’, ‘don’t notice’ and positive and negative comments. Positive interviewees’ comments included: happy customers, friendly, no trolley rage. Negative comments included: ‘rude’, ‘arrogant’, ‘stressed’.
Word association Word association was employed to encourage participants to sum up the image of their ‘main’ food retailer (Fig. 2) by asking them to write down the first three words/phrases that came to mind regarding the image of their main food store. A prompt list of phrases was provided to help, although participants were encouraged to choose uses their own words/phrases also. The answers provided the researcher with a variety of ‘consumer vocabulary’ associated with the image of the store, and enabled an image of the store to be generated based upon common sets of attributes. Interviewee task Choose three words/phrases to sum up the image of your ‘main’ food store and write your three chosen words/phrases on the shopping bag below. You may use phrases from the prompt list below or choose your own words.
Multiple response analysis was used to identify the main words/ phrases used to sum up each food store in the study by their customers and an ‘image pattern’ could be aspired to each store as demonstrated in Table 1.
Personification technique Possibly the most novel projective technique applied during the study was a personification technique. Interviewees were asked to imagine their ‘main’ food store was a person and answer questions about that person. An example of which is shown in Fig. 3. Interviewee task Interviewees were asked to imagine their ‘main’ food store was a person and answer questions about that person. An example of which is shown in Fig. 3. Analysis of the information enabled the creation of a personality/lifestyle for the food store the interviewee used the most. For example, responses from interviewees are shown in Table 2. The most popular words/phrases for each personality question are presented for each store in the table and can then be seen to generate the personality in question. Imagine your ‘main’ food store is a person! Answer the following questions about this person.
Figure 3 Personification of store.
Mini case studies The fourth method involved the use of a series of mini case studies, each one representing a different shopping scenario in
Figure 2 Example of word association.
Table 1 Most popular words/phrases used to sum up each food store image by their customers
Top three phrases and % of interviewees using this phrase
402
Tesco
Asda
Convenience stores (e.g. Spar, Vivo, Centra)
Supervalu
Dunnes stores
Convenient (19) Lots of choice (16) Value for money (14)
Convenient (17) Value for money (16) Lots of choice (16)
Convenient (18) Clean store (12) Good layout (11)
Convenient (20) Clean Store (16) Value for money (16)
Value for money (21) Good layout (19) Convenient (17)
International Journal of Consumer Studies 34 (2010) 400–404 © The Authors Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
36 50
25 25 25 29 42 29
46 29 46 27 25 25
Built up Convenient Suburbs Nowhere – too busy Professional Meat
Friendly Prestige car Recreational sport Loyal Disorganized Unhelpful
Using projective techniques
Happy Modern
Dunnes stores
(%)
S. Doherty and R. Nelson
which the interviewee was asked to imagine themselves. When faced with positive scenarios (such as receiving a loyalty reward for shopping in the store and feel good initiatives such as eco-friendly store policies) and negative scenarios (overcharging by store, food scare involving store’s products, etc.) respondents were asked to describe their feelings and how this would affect their loyalty to a store in future. An example of a mini case scenario is presented in Fig. 4.
49 37
48 28 27
53 34 36 27 23
Busy Tidy
Convenient
Europe Business Fast food
Friendly Prestige car Teamsport Clean and tidy Unhelpful
39 67
47
27 39 27 27 50 40 31 54 25 25
28
(%) Asda (%)
Interviewee task You will now be presented with a short scenario. Read it and then describe your feelings about the store.
Friendly Family car Teamsport Helpful Disorganized Describe its personality What type of car does it drive? What are its hobbies? What are its good points? What are its bad points?
82 23 33 37 27
Europe Business Meat Where does it go on holiday? What is its occupation? What is its favourite food?
Friendly Family car Recreational sport Friendly Too busy
50 33 35 33 25
Republic of Ireland Professional Fruit & veg Fast food Friendly Prestige car Teamsport Clean and tidy Slow Too small 37 39 18
Pleasant Describe the area it lives in
32 32 27
42 67 Busy Clean Sum up its lifestyle Describe its appearance
29
(%) Personification aspect
Europe Professional Ambient savoury
Pleasant
67 (36) 43 (23) 43 (23) 30 Busy Clean Modern Pleasant
(%)
Busy Modern
Supervalu Tesco Convenience stores (e.g. Spar, Vivo, Centra)
Table 2 Personification results for food stores (including % of interviewees selecting each response)
Figure 4 Example of a mini case study scenario.
International Journal of Consumer Studies 34 (2010) 400–404 © The Authors Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Because of the nature of the data collected, results from the mini case studies were recorded in evidence logs and interpreted using the content analysis approach (Mostyn, 1985). This involved examination of the content of the data to identify themes or categories and it is acknowledged that the researcher brings his/her cultural meaning to the interpretation of case study qualitative responses (Mostyn, 1985). In terms of respondents’ reactions to the case studies (qualitative data), differences were noted amongst respondents from different stores. Table 3 summarizes the typical reactions to the mini case study scenario A associated with each food store as an example. These scenarios represented critical incidents (Arnold et al., 2005) which could result in delightful or terrible shopping experiences; delightful in terms of engagement with staff, problem resolution or unanticipated value, and terrible, possibly in terms of core service failure, failed service encounters or poor response to failed service (Keaveney, 1995). The qualitative results illustrating reactions to the case study for customers using different food stores will now be discussed as an example of the type of information yielded through use of mini case studies: • Tesco customers accounted for 38% of the overall respondents. These customers generally were very positive about Scenario A (being rewarded for their loyalty to the store with a £5 voucher). This confirms the research of Arnold et al. (2005) who identified one source of a delightful shopping experience being ‘unanticipated value’. • Supervalu customers accounted for 10% of the overall respondents. Typical reactions to the thought of being rewarded for loyalty with a voucher were positive, although some customers suggested alternative ways the store could reward loyalty that would benefit all customers. • Asda customers accounted for 29% of the overall respondents. Asda customers were also positive about receiving a loyalty reward; however, some of them thought it was their right to get a voucher. 403
Using projective techniques
S. Doherty and R. Nelson
Table 3 Typical reactions of respondents to mini case study scenario A based on main food store (Phase 2) Case study synopsis
Main food store
Typical reactions
A. Customer rewarded for loyalty with £5 voucher to spend in their main food store
Tesco
‘I’ll be back’ ‘Happy! That’s £5 off next weeks shopping’ ‘Useful voucher. Happy to return’. ‘I should have been allowed to use the £5 off my bill’ ‘Would prefer a points system on any amount spent, ie small amounts’ ‘Generous’ ‘Managing a small token reward to customers it needs anyway’. ‘An incentive to come back and shop there’ ‘The store is caring, sharing’ ‘They want me back’ ‘I would like more than £5 as I have been shopping here for numerous years’ ‘Feel store appreciates custom’ ‘Isn’t that great – loyalty to the customer’ ‘I think all customers should be rewarded not only those who spend a large amount, as over the week you might spend more than that person spending £30 or more has spent.’
Supervalu
Asda
Dunnes stores
Convenience store (e.g. Spar, Vivo, Centra)
• Dunnes Stores sustomers accounted for 9% of the overall respondents. Some of these customers were positive but some viewed it as a ploy by the store to generate more custom and others considered their loyalty to the store deserved more than a £5 voucher. • Convenience Store customers (e.g. Spar, Vivo) accounted for 14% of the overall respondents. Generally, there was a positive response from convenience store customers, in fact some of them feel positively entitled to a loyalty reward from their food store and made suggestions regarding how a rewards system could be implemented by their store.
measured is isolated from other factors. Also, the quality of results relies heavily on researcher’s ability to interpret them correctly and a considerable degree of subjectivity applies in the interpretation of the often complex projective techniques data. To summarize, there is a need for further research, analysis and discussion of the utility of projective techniques in the consumer research domain because these techniques are fundamental to consumer research, providing a deeper understanding of a consumer’s true thoughts and feelings, experiences, motives – an honest opinion.
Conclusion
References
The experience of the loyalty study projective techniques research revealed that it can be fun and engaging for both participants and the researcher and will yield very useful, ‘rich’ data. In order to be successful, participants need to immerse themselves in the exercise – some may not feel totally comfortable role playing or using their imagination – however, in the authors experience, none of the 160 participants in the loyalty study refused to contribute and the majority positively enjoyed the projective technique tasks. It was also noted that by using projective techniques, a wider range of responses was gathered compared with those yielded through direct questioning using attitude scales. The techniques allowed interviewees to overcome some of the common social barriers that could otherwise have inhibited their expression of attitudes and behaviours, such as the barrier of the interviewee fearing their responses would be judged in a negative manner by the researcher. As a result, the methods employed in this study enabled a typology of consumer loyalty patterns to be developed which revealed both an emotional and a behavioural component related to loyalty, and three groups of consumers were identified with similar characteristics: – ‘devoted loyals’, ‘susceptibles’ and ‘promiscuous switchers’ (Doherty and Nelson, 2008). This typology and the attributes that each connotes could not have been developed from the ‘normal’ or ‘traditional’ methods that are widely employed. However, it is recognized that the tests need to be carefully designed to ensure they are controlled and what is intended to be
Arnold, M.J., Reynolds, K.E., Ponder, N. & Lueg, J.E. (2005) Customer delight in a retail context: investigating delightful and terrible shopping experiences. Journal of Business Research, 58, 1132–1145. Catterall, M. & Ibbotson, P. (2000) Using projective techniques in education research. British Educational Research Journal, 26, 245–256. Clough, P. & Nutbrown, C. (2002) A Student’s Guide to Methodology. Sage Publications Company, London. Doherty, S. & Nelson, R. (2008) Customer loyalty to food retailers in Northern Ireland: ‘devoted loyals’ or ‘promiscuous switchers’? International Journal of Consumer Studies, 32, 349–355. Donoghue, S. (2000) Projective techniques in consumer research. Journal of Family Ecology and Consumer Sciences, 28, 47–53. Kay, D. (2001) Going beyond words: how researchers are using projective techniques to better understand people’s views of brands. Marketing Magazine, 106, 22. Keaveney, S. (1995) Customer switching behaviour in service industries: an exploratory study. Journal of Marketing, 59, 71–82. Linzey, G. (1959) On the classification of projective techniques. Psychological Bulletin, 56, 158–168. Mostyn, B. (1985) The content analysis of qualitative research data: a dynamic approach. In The Research Interview (ed. by M. Brenner, J. Brown & D. Cauter), pp. 115–145. Academic Press, London. Steinman, R.B. (2009) Projective techniques in consumer research. International Bulletin of Business Administration, 37–45. Walliman, N. (2005) Your Research Project. Sage Publications, London.
404
International Journal of Consumer Studies 34 (2010) 400–404 © The Authors Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
