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Name Preference Studies

Often, it is wise to allow customers and objective groups to help you choose a name. Their input can help determine whether a new name is liked, is appropriate, is understandable, meets your objectives for the name. Research can also reveal those unintentional problems with names that have double meanings or have become recent slang expressions or have bad connotations in various audience segments.

Name preference research can also be used to measure the effectiveness and viability of an existing name. The current name is compared to other name candidates that may or may not be serious candidates for renaming the brand.

The best way to get unbiased reaction of new names is to let your customers choose between your top three or four name candidates. To measure reaction to an existing name - and only the name - we recommend interviewing people who have not been exposed to it before.

Methodology: We use any of four different methods - mail surveys, telephone surveys, e-mail surveys or mall intercept surveys. Focus groups are NOT appropriate for this type of research, primarily because one or two group members can influence and bias other group members. Once a name is selected, focus groups may be used to explore that name’s connotations and implications. But they are not right for preference research.

The names are presented one at a time after explaining to participants that you want their help in evaluating the names. They should be rotated so each name is presented first, second...last an equal number of times. If any of the names are unusual enough, all names should be spelled for the respondents (telephone interviews and mall intercepts) and they should be asked to write them down as they are presented and to pronounce them back to the interviewer. For mail and internet surveys, respondents can only be asked if they believe the candidate names are easy or hard to pronounce.

An overall impression of each name is first garnered in an open-ended question. Then a series (no more than six) of semantic differentials (scale from one to eight) are presented for each name. Both questions concerning your specific brand-related objectives and basic criteria for a good brand name can be asked.

Once each name has been critiqued, respondents are asked to rank the names presented according to various criteria and objectives. No more than four or five of these rankings should be presented due to interview length. Respondents find the repetition inherent in this research can be fatiguing, so anyway to shorten the interview (fewer names, fewer questions, fewer rankings) contributes to the number of completed questionnaires.

Finally, respondents are asked to select their favorite name.

Signature Strategies can create a turnkey name preference study and report for your organization similar to the example at Research Sample. Costs vary depending on research method, types of people to be interviewed, sample sizes, interview length, and source of names to be contacted. Prices typically range from $3000 to $6000

Whatever the cost, it is really an investment in the future success of the brand, and an insurance policy safeguarding against promoting a name that is confusing, inappropriate or ineffective.

We perform similar preference research for logo designs.