Laddering is a research technique which analyses the benefits and features of a product, service or issue, and connects those attributes to a target audience’s point-of-view and personal values.
More of an interview technique than an exercise to do during a brainstorm, Laddering visually demonstrates how individuals connect a brand’s features and attributes to benefits and values that link to their subconscious intent or desires. Laddering is primarily a positive connection between the brand and its customers, but it can also be an effective tool to map negative connections, such as their personal stake in a brand or a product during a crisis.
Put in a more conversational way, Laddering allows you to better undestand your customer by asking simple questions. Creativity comes into play when you 1) ask yourself what insights do the audience’s answers tell you about the brand or its issues, and then 2) brainstorm how you might translate those discoveries into potential ideas for implementation.
Laddering: The 'Why' Method
Starting broadly and moving to niche, the questions of the Laddering technique are designed for the interviewer to enquire how the respondent subjectively ‘moves’ from tangible features to intangible benefits of product attributes. A simplified conversation might look something like this.
- Respondent: I like A.
- Interviewer: Why do you like A?
- Respondent: Because of B.
- Interviewer. And why B?
- Respondent: Because of C.
- Interviewer: And why C?
Not unlike the 5 Whys of repeatedly asking “why?”, the interviewer using Laddering eventually hears a connection in the person’s response to a particular personal value. By understanding what motivates or inspires a person about a particular topic, the interview might be able to repeat that specific value in marketing or communications to the audience, through messages, engagement and tactics, social and digital media, and visual tone.
Start with the Interviews
All Laddering exercises begin conducting formal or informal interviews (sometimes both) with your customers or similar audiences.
- While formal research is expensive and time consuming, it’s far more reliable and objective. For important campaigns or assignments, it’s absolutely worth it the time and effort.
- Informal research is a great way to engage a group of people quickly. In the past, I’ve given workshop participants a single interview sheet and sent them out to talk to individuals prior to the meeting. Returning with the results of their conversation, participants gather together to plot the Ladder together to extract insights. Sometimes, it works to map the laddering prior to conducting the brainstorm, although make sure you have enough time so that you don’t feel rushed and jump to conclusions about the audience.
Whether formal or informal, you want as little bias, assumptions and naive judgements. The answers should be as specific as possible, and typically include:
- Testimonials: verbatim quotes that people use to answer any of the five questions. (Notice their word choices or turns of phrase.)
- Feelings, perspectives or emotions: that is, how they feel about something. Again, verbatim quotes are ideal, although never define their emotion for them. That’s their job, not yours. Don’t even suggest an emotion: that’s nothing more than a leading question.
- Examples: sometimes it’s hard for people to be articulate precisely how they feel, so asking for examples of situations may help explain how they feel. Less so, they may know examples of other people’s thoughts or experiences, although be careful as these could be assumptions of what someone else thinks, it’s not necessarily the truth.
Instructions
Get the Materials in Place
Shown at right, the Ladder works from bottom to top in five horizontal bands corresponding to the five questions.
- What is X* to you?
- What does X do for you?
- What benefits do you get from X?
- Why are these benefits important to you? How are they important to you?
- What personal value does this tap into?
* ‘X’ refers to your organisation, client, brand, etc.
Recreate the Laddering Chart
Once you have input from the target audience, start with recreating the empty chart for the group to work on together. You can do this by …
- Hanging a broad swatch of paper on a large wall so everyone can see it and write on it at the same time. I’ve also used five individual flipchart pages running horizontally, but with two stacked pages for vertical length.
- Use online collaboration tools to create it virtually. This way people can add their thoughts or insights online whenever they finish the interviews, no matter where they area.
- Distribute single pages to everyone to write their own notes. I often use a variation of the chart at right for interviews to use to gather their insights for each interview.
Some Admin
At the far bottom, I typically include the basic information about the project or campaign. This way, it explains itself if anyone picks up the page without you there to explain it. You might want to include:
- Name of company or organisation, as well as a department if relevant
- Band name
- Unique selling proposition
- Brand promise
- Admin details, like date, department, billing code, sponsors/RACI, contact information
As much as possible, use the audience’s own words when you answer the questions in the exercise. Don’t paraphrase or make assumptions. Stick to the testimonial.
Also, don’t think the target audience is going to know what value they’re using to connect with the company or brand. You’ll have use your judgment to make that leap, and depending upon the rapport and trust you’ve built with the other party, you can offer them suggestions for them to clarify and choose for themselves.
Of course, you’ll need a list of universal values so you can connect the fourth and fifth levels. There are many lists of values. I prefer this list of Universal Values because it’s simplest.
Questions
For all five levels, use the suggested questions below as thought-starters to adapt them to suit your company, situation or audience.
As you add levels, try to connect an answer on Level #1 to answers on Level #2, and so until you reach Level #5. This will help you find the connections and patterns between tangible experiences on the bottom row with intangible emotional connections on the fifth level.
Question #1: What is it?
In the first level, the questions focus on the tangible:
- How would you describe X in your own words?
- If you’d describe X to a good friend, what would you say?
- What five words would you use to describe X?
- What does X say about itself? Which part do you agree with? Which parts do you not agree with?
- How did you ‘connect’ with X in the first place? What were you looking for? What problem were you facing that led you to X?
Question #2: What does it do?
Use these questions try to connect the individual to the company, product or service (the ‘X’).
- What is X’s purpose specifically to you?
- What goal does X help you achieve?
- What are the features of X? (These tend to be specific, tangible aspects. Benefits comes next, in Q3.)
- How did you choose X? What made you select X over (something else)?
If you’re laddering an issue, or want to learn more about its problems, try these questions:
- What consequences happens when you use X?
- What outcomes may (or may not) happen because of using X?
- Does using X make like more complicated? More difficult? How so exactly?
- Does using X make other effects occur? (You’re looking for cause and effect here.)
At Level #2, it’s OK to get broad responses, although if possible, try to understand the specifics as it’ll help to move toward more specific strategies and tactics. For example, for a fast food restaurant, we got the customer to elaborate more on “Good customer service” to “there’s always good smiles when I walk up to the counter.”
Question #3: What benefit do you get from it?
At this level, you begin to tap into the subjective. Answers will be less tangible than Q2. Since personality and emotions start to flavour the answer, be even more curious about testimonials, statements, phrases, word choices, jargon or lingo which link the bottom level #1 to the personal top levels of #5.
- What are the benefits of X? (These tend to be more emotional, highlights what the person gets from using the features.)
- How does X make your life easier? Better?
- What do you get out of X? What’s in it for y ou?
- How does X affect how you feel about (blank)?
- Why does this help you/your family?
Again, notice how the answers start to get more subjective, if not personal.
Question #4: What is this important to you?
These answers are “selfish” – personal, immediate, intimate. They touch on emotions, both positive and negative. The important thing is not to judge. It’s easy at this level to question or disbelieve the emotional connection between layers. Don’t. You can go back and re-question the audience, but assume that their perceptions are very real to them.
- Why do you care about X?
- How does X affect you personally?
- How does X satisfy your needs?
- How well does it satisfy your ‘problem solving’?
- What’s the one thing about X you’d never change?
- What about X couldn’t you live without?
Question #5: What personal value does this tap into?
This is not a question you’d ask the respondent. More people wouldn’t have a detailed understanding, much less the articulate words to accurately describe how they feel.
Using the answers from Level 4 (and other levels too if relevant), discuss with the group how all responses may connect potentially to specific personal values.
Sometimes we’ve been able to find exact words in the testimonial interviews to help us make that leap. Sometimes it’s an educated guess or a leap of (logical) faith. If we have time and resources, sometimes we go back to the audience and drill deeper with questions which helps us figure out which value is the important one.
Example
Examples of Question #1 (What Is it?)
Gourmet My Way is an …
- Online gourmet cafe
- Quality food at a good price
- Good, reliable serivce
- Their website links to my social media accounts
- Allows me to try food from places not close to my home
- Examples for Question #2
Gourmet My Way …
- Delivers fast, good food right to my door
- It’s so much easier to enjoy adventurous eating with GMW
- Saves me time: from shopping, to cooking, to clean-up
- Supports local restaurants in my community, so my money stays in the neighbourhood
- Educates me about new foods, in fact they’re not only informational, they’re inspirational
Examples for Question #3
Gourmet My Way …
- The benefit is definitely the healthy food options, which I normally wouldn’t (think to) eat
- The simplicity is what’s best to me: it’s simple to order, simple to receive, simple to clean-up afterward with package that’s environmentally conscious
- GMW is a perfect to support our local food culture through supporting local businesses, chefs, cooks, wait staff, etc. If we didn’t have GMW, we wouldn’t have the diversity that we so enjoy in our community
Again, notice how the answers start to get more subjective, if not personal.
Examples for Question #4
Gourmet My Way …
- Makes sure I eat right every night.
- Is a time-saver: I can spend quality time on (other things)
- Supports my community: my money stays here where I do
Ultimately, the values we selected – Self-Esteem and Belonging – were the touchpoints to decide upon images, word choices, and overall tone of the campaign.
- Self-esteem
- Belonging
Have you ever used Laddering? Please feel free to add your thoughts or comments below.
1 Comment
Great content…thanks