What's in a name? (Name testing a new product)

When a new bundle of joy wriggles into the world everyone’s a twitter about the number of fingers, toes, the weight and … the name. Whether the parents decide on a traditional, spiritual or a unique name reflecting the place of conception or the fathers favoured footy player, everyone has an opinion. What’s more they’re prepared to pass judgement either to your face or behind it. Perhaps you’ve been in this position. Perhaps you’ve spent many a night on the couch, thumbing through the dog-eared pages of a baby-name book. Well ponder this …

What if that name choice meant the difference between your child being accepted into society and taken home for play dates, or being left in the park, alone on the swing, with no one pushing them. What then?

Would you be poleaxed with indecision?

This is the dilemma faced by anyone who creates a new product, novel, or piece of art. What to call your shiny new offering … an offering that holds all your hopes and dreams.

Over the past 20 years I’ve been fortunate get involved in name testing several products. Some worked, like the TAB Mystery Bet or HBF Essentials, sadly some didn’t. Earlier this year standing at the AGWA MoMa exhibition, Andy Warhol’s Soup Cans image reminded me of those times, and the challenges faced in finding the perfect name. The expanse of cans reminded me that the names presented for product testing tend to fall into four categories …

The Traditional

There will always be safe choices like Scotch Broth, harking back to days of soap stained washboards and uneven cobblestones. Add in the simple but moderately enticing subtitle … ‘a hearty soup’, and it’s bound fly off the shelves, meeting the needs of at least one consumer group.

The Lawsuit Avoider

Then there’s the name that clearly states what it is Vegetable soup, with the additional clarification just incase you missed it the first time …Vegetarian Vegetable soup. Don’t waste your time trying to take this one to the ACCC for misrepresentation. No doubt Vegans everywhere would be thankful of the clarification too.

The Bet Each Way

In contrast these names leave you guessing. Half of the design team like one name, the other half another. Rather than compromise someone decides why not bung them both together. Relieved to have a solution they marvel at their genius and decide they’ve created a whole new product category. Meanwhile the consumer is left confused. An example … Old fashioned Tomato Rice Soup. It defies logic, I mean do you want rice or do you want soup, make up your mind?

Seriously?

The third group is my favourite. When I hear them I have to use all my strength to remain straight-faced while my brain is screaming … ‘Seriously, oh come on you know you want to laugh’. From experience I can tell you it’s best to say nothing when presented with these names. Often, down the track when the name hasn’t tested well, you’ll find out that it was the CEO’s wife’s idea.

Andy Warhol provided us a couple of these …The Pepper Pot – surely designed to cure hay fever, it can be found in the medical section of the supermarket next to the Panadol. Then there’s my all-time favourite … Cheddar Cheese soup … seriously! See, I can’t help myself it’s an involuntary reaction like the little hammer hitting my knee.

So next time you’re in the supermarket about to pick up a packet of your favourite tea, ice cream or soup, spare a thought for the advertisers and product researchers who’ve had to plough through a river of names before settling on this one. In the meantime … really Cheddar Cheese soup … would you try it?