Ask any audience what Bulls, Bears, Sharks, Tigers, Eagles, Broncos and Rhinos have in common, and the response "rugby league teams" will be almost instantaneous. Similarly, Canaries, Magpies, Foxes, Owls, Rams and Wolves will be quickly identified as the images of soccer teams.Associating animals with brands or products extends far beyond the sports marketing arena. The delightful puppy used to promote Andrex , the chimps who drink PG Tips and the tiger associated with petrol sales have become part of our popular culture.The reason for this proliferation of associations between brands and animals or other images and symbols is simply an attempt to use secondary features to distinguish between almost identical brands and products.This paper explores the use of projective techniques for examining the transfer of characteristics from two sets of cue cards to a sample of food brands.In recent years there has been an explosion in the number of product categories and the number of similar brands available, which has required marketers and advertisers to look more closely at how customers relate to their brands. In the FMCG industry there is the added problem of the retailer labels: many large manufacturers of branded goods have lost clear brand leadership in a number of important markets to private label products, which is particularly problematic as price and brand name are often the only distinguishing features. This has prompted a shift away from focusing on consumers wants and needs in favour of brand equity and maximising investment in existing products with line extensions (Piirto Heath, 1996). Max Blackston, of Ogilvy and Mather, says: "There's little that distinguishes between brands these days in consumers' eyes. It's often very, very small, subtle things that you have to leverage" (Piirto Heath, 1990).The proliferation of new data sources entering the market, including scanner data and single-source databases, is making it tempting for marketers to seek their answers through consumer response to marketing effort and to track changes in market share, brand loyalty and brand switching. However, these are objective, behavioural measures that provide little evidence of the emotional and textural aspects of consumer response.