This is not a new concept. “Laddering” is a term used to refer to a technique wherein a focus group moderator begins with a specific product feature and continues to ask the respondent ‘what is good about that’ until a specific emotional benefit that supports the respondent’s self esteem is unearthed. The essential concept is that every functional benefit or feature which is sought after, is sought after for an emotional reason.

Even a completed price based benefit (e.g. ‘costs less’) is understood to be emotionally motivated because people in different categories may desire that benefit for different reasons. (Saving money in the automobile category may be found to lead to ‘I am safe’ or ‘I am financially secure’ whereas saving money on a package of gum may more likely lead to ‘I feel wise’ or ‘I am a smart shopper’). Even brand choices can be ‘laddered on’ to determine the key emotional benefits which are associated with them. One limitation of laddering however, is that in reality there are MANY emotional benefits associated with each product or service feature (laddering tends to assume just one). To craft an effective marketing strategy we wish to know the extent to which each product feature supports EACH of the desired emotional benefits in the human spectrum. (We also need to know where the competition is in this emotional terrain, what the multivariate emotional field looks like — what SETS of product features are most associated with desired emotions or desired SETS of emotions)

It’s also essential to realize that the importance order of emotional benefits varies by product or service category. For example while “feeling like an attractive person” might be an important value for most people, there are only certain product categories that can provide features that support that benefit. “Feeling Attractive” might be a significant motivating emotion for eye-wear, fashion, deodorant, or automobiles, because each of these categories have features that are perceived as supporting attractiveness. However, it probably isn’t an important emotional benefit for personal computers, stock brokerages, or long distance calling plans because there are no features that directly link to that feeling. The specific order of importance of emotional benefits varies by category. The differing product/service features in each category are each capable of supporting a different set of feelings. You need to know which feelings your category supports, and which particular concrete features of your product are most closely associated with those feelings.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Dr. Sharon Livingston, President, The Livingston Group

The Blake Project Can Help: The Emotional Connection Workshop

Emotional and psychodynamic factors are long known to drive brand selection and loyalty. Even in today’s price-sensitive economy, the imagery attached to brands goes far beyond product attributes, functional benefits and price.

All products and brands develop personas in consumers’ minds. All project varying user images, which differ by audience. Members of one audience may buy a product because it makes them feel affluent. Members of another, which values thrift, buy a brand because it makes them feel like smart shoppers.

More generally, consumers buy products with imagery that is either consistent with their positive view of themselves (“I’m sophisticated and therefore buy this type of wine to complete my image”) or which conveys a plausible aspirational model – something they would like to be and believe they could conceivably achieve (“I can be a real ladies’ man if I drive a sports car.”)

In fact, we have discovered that the essential component of Brand Character goes far beyond advertising slogans and packaging. The most powerful influencing factor in purchasing habits is the subtle, often-overlooked product/consumer relationship. A vital brand has a “relationship” with loyal users not unlike a healthy relationship between two people.

People maintain ongoing affiliations as long as each person in a relationship feels as though the other contributes positively to his/her sense of self. Relationships fall apart when perceived negatives begin to outweigh the rewards of the association. For example, being coupled with a successful friend casts a positive halo onto someone who values success.

If you want to build a strong Brand Equity relationship, (indeed — to develop a truly effective advertising platform of any kind) you must first understand the core values of your target market. In marketing, we often talk about the assessment of these core values as “laddering up to emotional end benefits.” These are the unspoken consumer values that are the glue to brand loyalty because they validate the user’s self perceptions.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Dr. Sharon Livingston, President, The Livingston Group

The Blake Project Can Help: The Emotional Connection Workshop

This approach may sound strange, but it is firmly rooted in clinical psychology and research, as are many other qualitative methods. Psychotherapists have long used so-called paradoxical interventions, whereby they instruct patients to think or act the opposite of how they need to improve.

As explained in Allen Fay’s book, “Making Things Better, By Making Things Worse,” reverse psychology allows the patient to gain freedom and insights useful for moving in the right direction.

How does this seemingly backward tactic work in brainstorming for marketing ideas?

1.) It helps respondents loosen up by relieving the fear of saying something dumb.

2.) It’s easier, initially, to figure out what’s wrong with something than to think about the correct solution. Once bad ideas are voiced, participants are able to consider the other side; how to turn these problems into solutions.

3.) It’s fun to come up with “bad” ideas, and basic research has shown that people are more creative when enjoying themselves. With psychotherapy patients, the humor in a paradoxical intervention is one reason why it works. Humor can overcome the mindset that personal problem solving is ‘painful’.

4.) People need to be able to say, “No!” This gives them an opportunity to assert their separateness and then join the team in coming up with good ideas.

5.) The resulting discussion is usually lively and high-energy. Respondents get a little giddy shouting out their intentionally outlandish ideas.

6.) If introduced appropriately, the technique enhances respondents’ trust in the moderator, and intrigues them about what (s)he might do next.

7.) A successful idea may be only a minor revision away from a “bad” idea. Therefore, hearing bad ideas often stimulates respondents to come up with great ideas. Moreover, the converse of one bad idea is the possibility of many good ideas.

8.) Insights into why bad ideas may fail can produce new insights into how a good idea can work.

9.) Occasionally, what a respondent thinks is a “bad” suggestion turns out to be a market success without modification.

Essentially, the exercise encourages respondents to think “outside the box” and come up with something other than predictable, safe, overly-rational suggestions.

As with any technique, there are certain risks with a paradoxical exercise:

1.) A client new to creativity sessions may require more than the usual explanation and nurturing to buy into it and listen with an open mind. They are anxious to see where it’s going and sometimes are impatient as the clock ticks and terrible ideas for products and services are offered up.

2.) It’s not for every client. People who are extremely structured in their thinking (have a very strong need for every effort to quickly converge on the right answer) shutter as they observe the plethora of losers that emerge.

3.) It’s not for every moderator. One must fully believe, from experience, that bad ideas can and will be turned around, or else the anxiety experienced during the technique will overcome its effectiveness. We strongly recommend that moderators set up several unobserved practice sessions prior to “going live.”

4.) Most importantly, one should NEVER leave the bad ideas to stand too long on their own merit. Immediately after soliciting a batch of horrible ideas, they should be presented as stimuli to respondents, who are given the more familiar task of coming up with “good” ideas.

An additional intriguing outcome of a successfully implemented paradoxical exercise is that other approaches used later in the same interview work better, even when they have nothing to do with coming up with bad ideas. This is because of the creative frame of mind aroused by the paradoxical experience.

Asking for bad suggestions is not the only exercise used in brainstorming for marketing ideas. There are as many creative ideas as there are creative moderators. Nevertheless, just as false starts are often the precursors to success, bad ideas can be the wellsprings of good ones in qualitative interviewing.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Dr. Sharon Livingston, President, The Livingston Group

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Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education

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User imagery, on the other hand, generally refers to one of two possibilities.

For many products, User Imagery often represents the ego ideal of interested people – who I want to appear to be because I use your product; vs. the “shadow” or “not me” among those who reject the product – it’s who I don’t want to be associated with and therefore would not want to use the product. Often, User Imagery projective questions are used as a way to keep participants honest in their reactions to product. So, for example, if a respondent says she probably will buy a product, but the user imagery is of a “not me” person, it becomes obvious that she was only being polite in her response to the purchase interest question and is not really interested. Car owner imagery is often expressed as this ego ideal or shadow. As discussed later, see the difference between the BMW driver vs. the Mercedes driver.

Other times, user imagery refers to a more realistic depiction of the actual consumer. We have an example of that below in the cough medicine story.

But now let’s move to brand imagery.

For me as a researcher, one of the most powerful illustrations of the influence of brand became evident in a study I was doing on a new mouthwash a number of years ago.

One of the groups was comprised of consumers who were heavy users of green Scope. They were given three unbranded samples of green mouthwash to try. One was the new brand, one was Listermint and one was green Scope. Not knowing which was which, it was amusing to see a bunch of dedicated users all turn up their noses at their beloved brand, Scope. Unbranded, it “tasted awful.” One man actually spit it right back out into the cup with a look of revulsion on his face.

Even more amazing was what happened later. After a period of time when taste buds were allowed to return to a more normal state, the same people were given branded versions of the identical products to try. When they swished with the branded Scope sample, big smiles broke out on their faces. Comments like, “Now that’s MY Scope” were made.” Even the man who hated Scope when he originally tried it unbranded, was a strong voice in the “We Love Scope” chorus. Inside, I just had to shake my head in amazement at the impact of a strong brand identity.

In certain categories and with certain products, the personification of brand imagery is close to a consumer’s aspirational model. We see this with status type products like cars, cosmetics, wine, clothing. So, for example, some one who would be interested in driving a BMW might describe it as a sharp, smart, fast, sexy and eloquent Pierce Brosnan type in the latest James Bond movie. In contrast the Mercedes might be described as Michael Bloomberg, a savvy, clever billionaire businessman who goes where he wants to go in-style. It’s easy to see how a personification of the brand and the aspirational user images could overlap in these cases. The BMW purchaser or aspirer wants to be seen as an educated car owner, who knows great value even though it might be cost more. This is an elegant but relatively understated type of person. The Mercedes owner is flashier, parading wealth in addition to making smart choices. So while the similarities in images are evident in this case, in most other categories there are important differences between the images of the brand and the user.

There is a tendency for clients and moderators to use personification techniques to get at brand images. We’re often asked if we could “get them to do a brand party”, where all the brands come to life and get together as their anthropomorphized selves. WATCH OUT. When you ask people to talk about a personification of a brand, there’s a danger that instead of talking about the brand characteristics, they will flip flop to the user. It’s fairly tough to ensure that respondents clearly distinguish between brand and user imagery when they are talking, (and sometimes even when brand managers are talking!). Here’s an example which really illustrates the difference. Let’s talk about OTC cough syrups.

Let’s work with Vicks 44 to start with, and imagine that we asked people to personify THE BRAND. The Vicks 44 brand might be described as a very strong truck driver who is a little gruff but always gets the job done. Whereas THE USER of Vicks 44 might be a very concerned wife who wants to give her husband something that is really going to take care of his cold and his cough.

In this example, you can see two very different images. While the brand is male and strong, the user is female and soft and perhaps even a little frightened. The brand is confident. The user is worried and is therefore looking to the brand to do this job that will make her feel more self-assured.

Also, the confusion between brand and user imagery is not limited to consumer products. Sometimes even the brightest respondents have trouble with this; even, and perhaps especially, when you’re talking to physicians about pharmaceuticals. For example, there is an anti-anxiety medication that does its job in protecting patients from anxiety attacks but also makes the user (often young women) gain weight. When physicians brought this med to life at a party, they described an obese woman.

Because brand and user imagery is often very rich and sometimes the most interesting part of a focus group, clients have a tendency to get distracted and forget to clarify the difference. (I’m so often forced by a client who thought a brand personality party they saw previously was really cool, to have them personify the brand so that they can hear them tell this cute story… without realizing whether that story relates to the brand or the user).

When you are moderating, if you see the group going down a road where they’re having trouble differentiating the brand characteristics and the imagery from the user characteristics, just stop mid-stream and say something very simple like “OK. From what you’re saying I can’t quite tell… are we talking about the brand and what it would be if it were alive or are we talking about the person who uses it?”

It’s really OK to stop in the middle of an exercise. The client will actually realize why you did that and you will look smarter than if you let it go, in which case they might think “Hey, wait a second. This is not the brand. This is the person who uses the brand. This exercise did not work.”

To avoid this dilemma you might consider using different imagery exercises for the brand portion vs. the user portion. There are many, many exercises to elicit impressions of brands that go beyond turning them into people. For example, if the anti-anxiety med imagery was obtained via analogy instead of personification, it might have been described as an exquisite chocolate truffle that was beautifully designed, delicious, soothing and comforting but very fattening.

An interesting way to get at both brand and user imagery as part of the same exercise is using a car and driver analogy. This approach yields clearly distinct associations for the brand vs. the user. You simply ask participants, “What if this brand were a car?”, and then get them to describe the car in detail, make, model, color, year, features, . There are the roots of your brand imagery. Then you ask “OK, now who do you see driving it?” … that’s the user imagery. A little structure and simple education like this goes a long way towards clarifying brand vs. user image in both the respondent’s and the back room viewer’s minds.

Let’s go through another example. Let’s say we’re looking at 3 different brands of bottled water. There’s Poland Springs, there’s Evian and there’s The Looking Glass. (We have our own bottled water in our facility… excuse my shameless plug).

So, there’s the Looking Glass bottled water, there’s Poland Springs and there’s Evian. What you say to the respondents is something like, “I want you to imagine that these three bottles turn into cars at night…. and now, I want you to listen as you can actually hear the motors of these 3 cars revving up.” (Make it fun and engaging. Be dramatic, wave your hand like a magic wand, use an intriguing tone of voice … ) “The doors. The garage doors are about to open. Behind the doors is the Evian car, the Poland Spring car and the Looking Glass car. And as the door is opening, again we can hear them revving up. I want you to imagine which vehicle each would be. What does it look like? What color is it? What year? What make? What model? And imagine the person sitting inside, what the upholstery is like, all the different bells and whistles inside. Describe it in your mind. Get a picture. Feel what it’s like to sit in it. Experience it. And as the garage doors open and it begins to drive out, you also can actually see the person who’s driving it. So, I want you to create 3 stories for me, 3 different images, 3 senses. One is of the car itself and the other is of the driver.”

The car and driver exercise is a very exciting and rich way to get some quick imagery of both the brand and the user. And it distinguishes the two in a meaningful way. It is easier to discern how the brand is like the specific car and how the user is like the driver. You can then query people about the tie back. “You said The Looking Glass water is like a BMW and Poland Spring is like a Land Rover. What are all the words you would use to describe a BMW? A Land Rover? What is it about The Looking Glass water that is like the BMW you just described? How so? And what about the Land Rover and Poland Spring? Similar probes can be asked for the BMW and Land Rover drivers.

There are so many other projective exercises you can use to understand brands that do not personify the product. They’re so much easier to read against the user imagery. But, if to please you’re client you need to do a personification of brand, just remember to watch out for confusion between brand and user.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Dr. Sharon Livingston, The Livingston Group

The Blake Project Can Help: Accelerate Brand Growth Through Powerful Emotional Connections

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education

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Any moderator worth his or her salt does this daily, without consciously using Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) techniques. Many focus group moderators instinctually mirror a participant’s representational system when asking a follow-up question or eliciting greater depth from a projective exercise

Want a participant to keep talking? Then probe in the language of his or her sensory modality.

Sensory Modality and Participant Verbatims

Sensory modalities are part of a NLP model that identifies patterns in how people externalize the information they are processing. When participants talk, they often speak from a state of mind that is more closely aligned with one sense over another. For instance:

Visual That’s a bright idea. I see how I can use the car’s extra space.

Auditory I hear how this makes sense. Let me tell you — this is a winner.

Kinesthetic How fast can I accelerate? I feel like this car was made for me.

Olfactory Smells like a winner. Some ideas stink, but this is coming up roses.

Gustatory That new car looks yummy. It has the fine flavor of elegance.

When you hear someone speak in a particular sensory modality, and you ask questions in that same modality, the person is more likely to continue talking than if you ask a question in a different sensory modality. You are also more likely to get a congruent answer and more likely to keep the participant engaged.

We can see inside participants’ minds — and know how they are processing information or which parts of their brain they are accessing — by their eye movement. Have you ever noticed how a participant’s eyes move when you ask him or her a question? Try this sometime soon… Ask someone this series of questions:

• What did it look like the last time it rained?
• What are the lyrics to “The Star-Spangled Banner”?

Then, watch the person’s eyes. His or her eyes will most likely go the same direction each time, because both questions solicit a recollection. Chances are good that the eyes will go to the right (the person’s left) after each question because approximately 85% of the Western world’s population that has been tested accesses memories by looking to their left. If you want to see a more subtle distinction, when you ask someone to recollect a visual, the person will likely look up and to your right. If you ask someone to recollect a sound, however, the person will likely look directly to your right (his or her left) along a horizontal plane. Here are questions that are a little trickier.

• Please imagine a purple elephant with big orange spots.
• Can you see it?

Most people have never seen such a critter. Their eyes will go back and forth (their left to their right) as they try to remember the components in Vr and then construct the new variant in Vc. Sometimes, an indication of a fib can be seen when a person only looks up to Vc in response to a question that should be easy to recall. Example: What was the party like last night? If the response is all in Vc, perhaps the person queried never attended or was so drunk that he can’t remember. You should always test your assumptions. For practical purposes, when you see someone’s eyes move, you can often infer how that person is accessing what he or she knows.

As a focus group moderator, if you ask a participant about buying a new car and you see her eyes go up, you might ask what she looks for because her eyes going up revealed that she was seeing pictures in her mind. Similarly, if you ask a participant about buying a new car and you see her eyes go horizontally, you might ask what she listens for, because her eyes going sideways revealed that she was hearing words or sounds in her mind.

Again, you need to test your assumptions. Lefthanded people often have reversed eye movements from the general population. Some people move their entire head instead of moving their eyes. Important note: Someone leaning back with his eyes staring at the ceiling may simply be accessing the visual part of his mind. You can test whether he is tracking with you by asking, “What do you see?” If his head shakes before he answers, he was probably daydreaming; however, if he keeps staring as he talks you through what he is seeing, chances are he needs to look up to fully access his ability to visualize. When you speak into a participant’s primary modality, you make it easier for that person to share what’s inside his or her head. Sometimes, the results can look remarkable. People reveal themselves in ways they normally would not.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming

NLP is based on the remarkable work of Dr. Milton Erickson, who was widely recognized as the foremost hypnotherapist of his time. Dr. Erikson was able to ingeniously structure sentences full of vague meanings to help his clients discover how to address their problems and the resources that they already had available to them. His success was based on his ability to read non-verbal behavior (sensory acuity), his ability to establish rapport with his clients, his skill with language patterns and his beliefs about his clients. Bandler and Grinder, the founders of NLP, studied Erickson as part of their development of their approach to working with people.

Here’s a famous illustration of Dr. Erickson’s work. A twelve-year-old boy was brought in to see Erickson about bedwetting. Erickson dismissed his parents and began talking to the boy about other topics, avoiding a direct discussion about bedwetting altogether. Upon learning that the boy played baseball and that his brother had played football, Erickson elaborated on the fine muscle coordination it takes to play baseball, compared to the uncoordinated muscle skills used in football.

The boy listened raptly as Erickson described in detail all the muscle adjustments his body automatically makes in order to position him underneath the ball and catch it. For instance, the glove must be opened at just the right moment and clamped down again at just the right moment. When transferring the ball to another hand, the same kind of fine muscle control is needed. Then, when throwing the ball to the infield, if he lets go too soon, the ball doesn’t go where he wants it to go. Likewise, letting go too late leads to an undesired outcome and, consequently, to frustration. Erickson explained that letting go just at the right time gets the ball to go where the player wants it to go, and that constitutes success in baseball.

Therapy with this young man consisted of four sessions that included talks about other sports, Boy Scouts and muscles. But bedwetting (which is often a muscle-control problem) was not discussed, and “formal hypnosis” was not conducted. The boy’s bedwetting disappeared soon thereafter. Some of Erickson’s tenets appear in the list of NLP Presuppositions. For example:

• Every behavior has a positive intention.
• This is the best choice available to a person, given the circumstances as he or she sees them.
• Respect the other person’s model of the world.
• Resistance in a client is due to a lack of rapport. There are no resistant clients, only inflexible therapists.

Erickson also used a technique that has been labeled “Pacing and Leading” in NLP. He would start by subtly mirroring a client’s physical expression as a way of creating rapport. Think about how a baby delights in being copied. On some level, we all feel “seen” and understood when another person gestures the way we do or uses the same speed of talking and type of language.

Once he established that connection, he would begin to lead the client into a different space, generally what hypnotists call a trance or downtime, where the person is encouraged to explore his inner world. (In NLP terms, uptime is when your senses are focused on the outside world, while downtime is related to your inner thoughts.) As we go through our daily activities, we are continually cycling through uptime and downtime and are often somewhere in between.

So, to pace a respondent, begin by matching her postures and gestures, choice of verbs, tone of voice, etc. Once the connection is made, you can change the tempo and sensory system to elicit responses from all senses — e.g., what did you see, hear, feel, smell, taste or think? This is particularly helpful in any guided imagery exercises you may design. Clients are amazed when respondents report on the colors they saw and the scents they smelled in their reveries.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Dr. Sharon Livingston, President, The Livingston Group

The Blake Project Can Help: Accelerate Brand Growth Through Powerful Emotional Connections

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers