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Name Preference Research Sample

Research Sample: The following report is based on typical projects but is not a client’s specific project. Neither the names, industry, goal-related questions or numerical results are real.

The hypothetical client, a multimedia educational publisher, wished to know which of three name candidates for its newly merged company were perceived most memorable, most unique, and most appropriate, as well as best meeting three specific marketing goals.

A telephone survey was decided upon because both parties to the merger had customer and prospect lists upon which they could draw, and had customer service reps they could use to do the survey. The reps were trained to interview so as not to introduce bias, and were instructed to ask callers they had just helped to participate in the study. They also did outbound calls when not servicing inbound calls.

The three names were rotated to eliminate any bias introduced by position of presentation. A total of 184 completed questionnaires were used to compile the results presented below. Classification of respondents included customers and prospects (non-customers of competitive materials) from both company databases in almost equal proportions.

Names Surveyed: The three names surveyed were:

Ideas Abounding
The Idea Hive
Phi Beta Data

Typical Report: This report presents the results of a telephone survey of customers and prospects from two different lists - from Company A’s database and from Company B’s database. Results are presented for each database of customers, each database of prospects, and as a composites of customers, prospects, and composites of  each business. Finally, an overall composite of results is presented.

The objective of the study was to determine customer/prospect preference for a new name for the merged businesses. The name chosen was to meet three company-specific objectives, and three basic naming criteria.

Company-specific objectives were that the name should connote:

Accelerated Learning
Creatively Challenging Materials
Entertaining Materials

Generic attributes thought to be of special importance were:

Memorability
Appropriateness
Uniqueness

In the sequence below, only the composite results are presented for the semantic differentials and the rankings. Conclusions and recommendations are presented.

This is a distribution of response by the composite universe to the first company- specific semantic differential. It shows Phi Beta Data and Ideas Abounding are better regarded than Idea Hive as a conveyor of the accelerated learning concept. The average score for each follow.

Ideas Abounding:           5.9 Ave.
Idea Hive:                     4.5 Ave.
Phi Beta Data:               6.2 Ave.

The results of each semantic differential about goals and name attributes were visually displayed and analyzed as above. Then each goal and attribute were given a weight determined by their importance in relation to each other and scores were added for each name. This provided a fairly independent look at each name as to its ability to meet the requirements for the final name as displayed below.

The above analysis was performed on each significant universe: customers, prospects, Company A database, Company B database to determine if significant differences became apparent.

Next, rankings were considered. They, too were weighted for importance of goal or attribute in the same manner as were the independent opinions offered through semantic differentials. We also applied a weight for rank: Five for 1st place, three for second place,  none for third place. Below are sample results for Ranking of Perceived Memorability, and Ranking of Overall Name Preference.

In overall performance, there is a virtual tie between Ideas Abounding and Phi Beta Data, though Ideas Abounding has more first place overall preferences. In this case, either name seems to be well regarded. The selection may well be determined by measures of individual attributes. In the chart on the left we see Phi Beta Data is perceived to have a greater chance to be memorable. For other attributes, Ideas Abounding may have the edge. In depth analysis by customer, prospect, company A or B database may help determine the decision.