Saturday, October 08, 2005

Imaginative names

I was doing some research online when I came across this cool study that was done at Boston College. Marketing professors looked at the positive response consumers have to imaginative names, even when they dont really describe the product. I wondered if I am the same and I realised that to a certain extent we are influenced by the name of the product especially if its unknown and ambiguous. Apparently people like to choose products with imaginative names so they feel as though they put some thoughts into making that decision. It kind of makes sense because nobody wants to think of themselves as been brainwashed by the marketing industry.. and yet they are constantly finding ways to fool us. Now the whole point is to make us feel like we know what we're doing.. Personally I do like to think about what I'm buying and why I'm buying it. What's making me buy a certain product over another etc. "The researchers also wanted to examine the effect of these product names in connection with incongruency theory. This theory argues that people make judgments by evaluating new encounters against existing expectations." Think about that: how many times do we try to figure out why a product has a certain name and wonder what it has to do with the flavor or with anything at all?!? This only works to a certain extent, if the name is too ambiguous it frustrates the consumer (Don't you agree???) .. Check out the study and tell me what you all think !!