Culture Current Seeks Insights from Images

In Cincinnati, former Sigma Director Joe Kiefer has launched a consumer agency, Culture Current. The firm aims to use innovative image association techniques to provide strategic thinking about customer behaviour and attitudes to products and services.

While the firm provides traditional and online quant techniques, it also offers qual research with a twist. Using a system based on word and image association games developed by philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, Kiefer has designed the Kiefer Image Dialogue Deck (KIDD) to encourage what he describes as 'fun and engaging' research.

Participants are shown between 30 and 40 KIDD images and asked to choose one that describes their unique intuitive reaction to a new product or a creative advertising idea, and then label it with a word that describes the feeling the image invokes. Afterwards, Kiefer and his team set about interpreting the link between a particular thought or idea with the specific image selected.

Even though Kiefer states there is no pre-determined 'right or wrong' with the exercise, associations can be as obvious as a photo of a lime representing a citrus flavor, or as complex as images of sticks or weeds representing a breakfast cereal, or a picture of someone riding a horse sparking feelings of happiness or pleasure.

Kiefer says that the idea behind the process is not to expect an outcome that is quantifiable, but instead to help people get to what he describes as the 'relevant now', where they can express their emotions as they feel them at that precise moment.

'To some people, images of a car crash might represent an explosion of flavor, a yawning baby may mean 'bored' or 'tired', or a piece of Kandinsky artwork could represent 'color'. There are no rules,' Kiefer told DRNO.'

Ad agencies, corporates and branding and research agencies are already using Culture Current's technique to produce feedback on their clients' products or service offerings.

Plans for developing the concept further are also underway, with Kiefer preparing to set up 'Innovate Forward' teams in client companies, where any member of staff at any level of the organization can meet to brainstorm and thrash out brand concepts and ideas.

Today, Culture Current has expanded its team, with the appointment of clinical psychology researcher Dr Edward Chang as Human Analytics Advisor.

Web site: www.culturecurrent.net .