‘Intuitive Collage’ or ‘Words and pictures’
How it works
Through creative association. A picture is worth a thousand words, and this technique harnesses the power and flexibility of visual imagery. It works by associating visual elements with the brand to literally build up a picture of what the brand is about. The ‘words’ part is optional, but creative use of given words is also revealing.
Finding pictures which feel right for a brand enables consumers to find elements they would not normally be aware of or able to articulate. It is important to translate the pictures back into words at the end, so that you and they have a shared meaning from the exercise.
When to use it?
When you need to look deeper into brand or product imagery and you want to find what consumers bring to it rather than have them react to a set stimulus. You can use it for brand imagery (personality, user image, occasion image), packaging, product categories, famous people, organisations, countries….
Characters described on narrative tapes can be brought to life. Future scenarios can be imagined – such as what it would be like to work in a particular company – the uses are limitless.
Timing and Preparation
It is important to build up a good range of images from magazines, covering a wide degree of categories. Don’t just go for exotic and glamour shots – gritty, dowdy, realistic are also essential. It is possible to provide respondents with magazines and ask them to tear out appropriate images, but this can take longer.
However the same image can stand for many things. A red setter in a field can represent loyalty, energy, animal instincts, a green welly lifestyle, even good grooming. So don’t worry if your selection is initially limited. It’s also a good idea to include some textures – bubble wrap, feather, balloons, etc.
The actual time you need will vary from 15 mins to over half an hour, depending on how broad or focused your issue is. A quick one would be a brand user imagery, where the images are fairly literal. It would take longer if you wanted to explore all aspects of a brand, or create a comparison between two brands. A subject such as Personal Ambitions is also great for collaging, but can take a long time because its both broad and detailed.
How to do it
Introduce it by saying that you want to learn more about the image of the product you are working on, and so you would like them to make a collage. Hand them each a random selection from the box. Any objections tend to get lost as they start looking through the images. Emphasise its important they should choose relevant images intuitively – this is about by-passing the rational part of the brain.
“I want you to look quickly through these and pick out any that for some reason you associate with (name brand/product/user/etc). Don’t worry if they are not exactly right, you can use pictures creatively. (give example) When you have finished we will go through them all together.”
Other instructions you may want to add:
“Pick out as many as you want, then find 5 or 6 which you think are best”
“Choose the ones which show a range of different things about X.”
“Pick what feels right to you, but I will be asking you to say something about the pictures at the end.”
Allow them enough time to gather together their cluster of pictures, and then ask them to say a few words about why they chose them. Encourage them to comment on each others’, to find common themes and to help you interpret the significance of the images.
You can take the most significant pictures and arrange them on a board to create the collage. This gives a sense of completion, but is not strictly necessary.
You can split a group into two halves and have them work on competing brands. (For this you should give each group a board or a part of the table on which to arrange their collage.)
This saves time and gives an added dimension, but each half will be subject to its own group dynamic. Typically one person emerges as co-ordinator and leader, and you need to explain that the collage should represent both a group view and any strong individual views.
How to analyse it
You are interested in the themes and the concepts behind the words. These allow you to make comparisons across groups.
Once the group have all laid out their pictures comment on general themes, which emerge and get feedback on how these are relevant. If you decide to present some of the pictures in a composite collage to the client, make sure you include any verbatims from the respondents necessary to clarify the meanings of the pictures.
The example above shows two summary collages about ‘Yorkshireness’, showing how collaging can also work for cultural issues. The one on the left is from participants in London, who saw Yorkshire as a kind of theme park, with hardy steadfast people, old-fashioned values, very upright, straightforward and traditional. The one on the right summarises the views of Lancashire men (there is a centuries old rivalry between Yorkshire and Lancashire). Here the steadfastness is reframed as stubborn, blind and selfish – and there is more emphasis on the miserly Yorkshire character, lightened only by a large capacity for beer.
Pitfalls of the technique
- Not enough time to do it properly
- Occasional clever clogs respondents who use their pictures to tell a creative story, but actually says nothing about the research questions (annoying but not a real problem)
- People who say they couldn’t find anything (ask them what they would have wanted to be there)
The technique works just as well in Workshops, where you can use wall space to develop collages and tell stories.
