Other than marketing, we have used qualitative research for HR solutions as well. We helped Airtel develop their HR competency framework in 2008- 2009 which was reflective of the new brand identity developed for the brand to reach the next level. We worked with American Express on the gender ratio issues at senior levels, talking to their own middle and senior level executives.  How to attract new talent into a company was also one of the subjects we worked on for one of our clients.

We were also hired as brand/marketing consultants to  Bharti-Delmonte on a retainership basis, acting as their consumer gate-keepers in their initial start-up days. We developed new products, in-store promotional material working along with the marketing as well as product development team. For few clients, we have even acted as enablers by conducting workshops for their marketing and non-marketing teams so that they were able to do consumer immersions themselves. This training helped them to understand consumer needs better.

We make use of innumerable tools and techniques in our work to achieve the objectives set. These include usage of a wide range of projective techniques as well.
Projective Techniques- Projective techniques are methods used by psychologists to uncover deep-rooted thoughts that may not arise as a result of direct questioning. In short, they consist of getting respondents to speak about something indirectly by “projecting” their thoughts on something else. This allows bypassing resistance to direct questioning that may make participants uncomfortable, or to tap into underlying thought processes that are not immediately available to respondents. It involves an unstructured, indirect form of questioning that encourages respondents to project their underlying motivations, beliefs, attitudes or feelings regarding the issues of concern.
The effective usage of these techniques is highly dependent on moderator skills who delicately and subtly hand holds the respondent and enables him to cross over from the rational/ objective mode to the more imaginative/ creative and obscure mode of thinking. The juices of imagination have to be let loose and allowed to take their own course without any presage for answers to get a full blown view.  This is different from an "objective test or questioning” in which responses are analyzed according to a universal standard (for example, a multiple choice exam). The responses to projective tests are content analyzed for meaning rather than being based on presuppositions about meaning, as is the case with objective tests.

Types of projective techniques