Jerry W. Thomas is president and chief executive of Dallas/Fort Worth-based Decision Analyst Inc. (www.decisionanalyst.com), one of the oldest and largest privately owned research and analytics firms in North America. Decision Analyst specializes in strategy research, advertising testing, product testing, package testing, and marketing optimization. Thomas welcomes feedback, suggestions and comments. He can be reached at jthomas@decisionanalyst.com and 817-640-6166.
That great new product is ready to go. Concept test results are positive. In-home usage tests of the product are positive. The package design looks great. Oops! Wait a minute. What are we going to call this new product? What is its name to be? This would seem like a very simple problem to solve. Do a little ideation to come up with 50 or 100 names, and then screen those names for the best candidates; that is, show those 50 or 100 names to consumers and ask them to pick the winners. Slam dunk. Problem solved. A new name is found.
