Focus groups, interviews and other qualitative research techniques are very useful tools with which to discover and understand your target audience's desires, needs, and priorities. But they are not designed to function as decision-making tools: they cannot tell you which name will perform the best. Understanding the strengths and limitations of qualitative research and how best to use it will save you a lot of time, money, and effort.

If you need to gain greater insight into how your company's product or service is perceived and valued by your target audience, qualitative research, such as focus groups, can provide an abundance of valuable information. A skilled moderator can guide the focus group respondents through exercises that help them express

• how they feel about your company, product, or service
• the quality of their experience with it
• how that experience measures up to their experiences with your competitors
• what unique benefits they perceive your company, product, or service to offer
• how credible and appealing they think your positioning really is

What focus groups can do, when well-constructed and expertly facilitated, is garner considerable useful information about such perceptions, and the insight gleaned from the groups can both focus and inspire the creative expression of your company's or product's brand value. Themes emerging from the consumers' discussion of your offering's unique benefits can, for instance, spark ideas for names, taglines, and advertising and promotional campaigns that map directly to your target market's perceptions and aspirations.

"Since qualitative research can provide so much valuable information with such a modest investment, why not just invite a couple dozen consumers in for pizza and M&Ms and have them evaluate the names and pick out the winner?"

Because it can be a sure-fire way to kill a perfectly good name, that's why.

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