For many people a brand is such an ethereal concept it can be hard to pin down the defining make-up of the brand. The most common technique for eliciting the composition of the brand is personification. "If the brand were a person, what type of person would it be...?"
This is known as a projection. It is often far easier to talk about something we have words and images for, such as people or cars, so by describing the brand as a person, it is easier to articulate what the brand is about. Projection techniques are used frequently in qualitative brand research to get at the essence of brand make-up.
