The 1st stage of naming. The examination of product and target audience
The appearance of a new product at the market is always preceded by the stage of marketing research that is the examination of the perception of the product among consumers, as well as the consumer idea about competing brands in the studied product category. At the same time the attitude of the consumers to the existing names (the assosiation with names) and competitors\' design is studied. Properly designed product name has to correspond to the psychological characteristics of consumers, their idea about the product, and positioning of the product and its package.
The 2nd stage of naming. Creating of semantic field
The data on socio-demographic and psycological characteristics of target audience, the idea about existing and ideal product, the criteria determined by the client in the brief are the basis for the development of semantic base of a name. Analytically sensible and most reasonable semantic base becomes a peculiar platform and the boundaries of a future name at the same time. They form a semantic field, which is a set of linguistic units united by a single integration semantic feature.
The 3d stage of naming. Generating of names
Next phase includes active search of words in existing vocabulary of Russian, English, Ukrainian and other languages with the help of special creative techniques. At this stage the knowing of consumer audience lifestyle is important. This is where the leading role takes creativity – the passion, involvement, emotional charge of copywriters, their ability to penetrate into the inner world of target audience, the world of its interests, language, and needs. It is hard to imagine name creator who is not captured by the idea and just coldly manipulates words.
The obligatory step in naming is a creative team consisting of employees of GBS and specially invited philologists and linguists. The format and composition of the group varies depending on the stage of work on the generating and evaluation of names.
The 4th of naming. Name alalysis
After a deep, comprehensive analysis of summary data, the leader group of 30 names is selected. Then 10 «best of the best» names are examined in detail. The names have to correspond to the set of criteria.
The 5th stage of naming. Testing of names on target consumer group
Making a final decision, the owner of future name has to be guided by the results of marketing research. His perception and understanding of names may strongly differ from the perception and understanding of consumers (at least because of the differences in income). Name testing is performed by using different techniques:
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the survey among consumers aimed to identify such important moments as scale evaluation of names, the evaluation of name correspondence to the product, readiness to buy, association with names, the rating of names with one leader determining.
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Hall-test which is quantity and quality method that allows to test names along with package design and product concept. Usually this test is conducted before the release of a product at the market.