Qualitative data: projective techniques (MR, unit 7)

Used because people may respond differently to how they actually act (telling you what they think you want to hear) or find it difficult to articulate

Methods:

• Third person - friendly martian
• Word association - I say women , you say ...... (assumption if answer quickly, spontaneous & sub-conscious thought revealed)
• Sentence completion - (quick responses, as above)
  
• Thematic Apperception Tests (TAT) - what's going on in a picture (or before/after)
• Story completion - what happens next
• Cartoon completion - complete balloon
• Psychodrama - imagine yourself as a product

Problems:
- No hard evidence of validity, may not be considered scientifically valid
- Analysis is highly subjective and prone to bias
- Small sample of population (can't generalise to market as a whole)
- Ethical issues invading subconscious when respondents unaware

Value:

• Reveal hidden motives for product usage
• can develop new promo messages
• test brand names, symbols, advertising copy for associations e.g. BrandTag
  
• test any hypothesis on more representative samples using quantitative techniques