Our lips are sealed: Why the truth is implicit

This case study shows how a new implicit and metaphorical approach to research gave eBay, the online auction platform, a powerful commercial insight impossible through direct questioning.

Our lips are sealed: Why the truth is implicit

David Penn and Suzanne LugthartConquest Research and eBay

Introduction

Much of the truth (about brands, advertising and products) lies submerged, in our implicit mind. Direct questioning cannot elicit this truth, because we cannot express attitudes that we don't know we possess. To penetrate the implicit mind, we need approaches which reflect its fast, automatic and emotional nature.

This paper explains how response latency and metaphors were harnessed to create non-directive tools which tap into automatic processes. For eBay, the approach revealed a strong (and hidden) negative bias among...

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