Why projective techniques reveal emotional attachment, trust, and premium appeal more precisely than direct questions – and how to use this in positioning.

Between what people say in questionnaires and what actually drives their choices, there is almost always a gap. This very gap is the everyday challenge of marketing and communications professionals. In a Dove global study across ten countries, only 2% of women described themselves as beautiful (1*). This is one of many confirmations that a brand’s image lives in emotions, associations, and relationships. These layers cannot be uncovered by asking directly.

Why direct questions don’t reveal a brand’s true image

Research shows that consumers form real relationships with brands: with trust, closeness, and attachment, much as they do with people (2*). These relationships form in the subconscious. Roughly 95% of purchase decisions are made unconsciously, which is difficult to put into words (3*). That is why the question “Why did you choose this brand?” usually elicits a filtered, rationalized answer, what a person thinks would be the “right” thing to say, rather than what truly drives them.

Projective techniques: how to dig deeper than the “right” answers

Projective techniques are qualitative research tools that allow a person to speak not directly about themselves, but through symbols, images, or a third person. In this way they say what would be difficult or uncomfortable to express directly. In Berg Research’s practice, we most often use four approaches that complement one another:

• Word association test reveals subconscious connections; for example, when asked about a bank, a customer may spontaneously react with “queue” or “father”, outlining the emotional field around the brand.
• Brand personification (“If this brand were a person, what would they be like? Where would they work? What would they wear?”) reveals the brand’s archetype, social distance, and tone of communication.
• Incomplete sentences and the third-person technique (“People who buy X are usually…”) make it possible to express what respondents themselves would find uncomfortable to admit about status or the motives behind their choices.
• Metaphor elicitation technique (ZMET) — a week before the interview, the respondent selects 8–12 images that express their feelings about the brand. For example, in such a study Coca-Cola emerged as a “symbol of celebration and belonging”, which became the basis for the brand’s global communication.

What this data tells us about emotional attachment, trust, and premium appeal

International research shows that emotional attachment to a brand, for example warmth, affection, connection, is something quite different from simple satisfaction, and it is precisely this that better predicts what a customer will actually do (4*). Emotionally attached customers are 52% more valuable than those who simply use the brand, because they buy more often, stay longer, and are more willing to recommend it to others (5*). Global brand studies likewise confirm the link between premium appeal and emotion: for brands to which customers are emotionally attached, they are willing to pay on average 37% more (6*). These layers, such as emotional warmth, trust, willingness to pay a premium price, and openness to long-term relationships, are not reached by rational questions. It is precisely projective techniques that help uncover them and turn them into the foundation of communication and positioning.

How to interpret: principles that turn data into strategy

The interpretation of projective data is not literal. It is a process in which the researcher looks for symbols and themes that recur across several people’s stories, coding and verifying them step by step (7*). One essential principle: the meaning of a symbol must not be assigned by the researcher alone; it is always the respondent who helps explain it (8*). For the results to be sufficiently reliable, projective techniques are best combined with in-depth interviews and, where needed, with quantitative verification. In real examples it works like this: the Dove global study finding that only 2% of women call themselves beautiful became the basis for the strategic “Real Beauty” mission, while LEGO discovered that children want mastery rather than simple entertainment, and a return to the core value of the building brick helped it regain its market position.

The benefit to business

Researching a brand’s image with projective techniques is not a cost item, but an investment in long-term competitiveness. It answers questions that customers themselves cannot answer directly: why they choose this brand, what they expect from the relationship, what they are willing to pay more for, and what makes them open to long-term cooperation. It is precisely this data that gives company management well-founded arguments for communication and positioning decisions, not guesses, but a measurable emotional map on which to build the brand’s future.

(1*) Etcoff, N., Orbach, S., Scott, J., D’Agostino, H. (2004). The Real Truth About Beauty: A Global Report. Dove/Unilever.
(2*) Fournier, S. (1998). Consumers and Their Brands: Developing Relationship Theory in Consumer Research. Journal of Consumer Research, 24(4), 343–373.
(3*) Zaltman, G. (2003). How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market. Harvard Business School Press.
(4*) Park, C. W., MacInnis, D. J., Priester, J., Eisingerich, A. B., Iacobucci, D. (2010). Brand Attachment and Brand Attitude Strength. Journal of Marketing, 74(6), 1–17.
(5*) Magids, S., Zorfas, A., Leemon, D. (2015). The New Science of Customer Emotions. Harvard Business Review, November 2015.
(6*) Kantar BrandZ (2024). Most Valuable Global Brands Report. Kantar.
(7*) Braun, V., Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101.
(8*) Gordon, W., Langmaid, R. (1988). Qualitative Market Research: A Practitioner’s and Buyer’s Guide. Gower.