Personification

A simple and flexible projective technique in which respondents are asked to imagine something inanimate (often a brand) as if it were a person. They are asked to describe this person's lifestyle, appearance and so on, and may be asked to imagine where and how they might live, go on holiday, what kind of work they might do, and so on. As with all projective material, this is most useful if fed back into the discussion, respondents being invited to themselves consider what they have 'said' about the brand in this way. A common variant of this task is to ask respondents to imagine the brand as an animal, or as a car, or as some other object, and again to explore the parallels they are thus drawing.

Related Terms

• Projective and enabling techniques