Framing and naming: A process to define a novel food category

Product names can make or break a company. Likewise a poorly described category name may hurt an entire industry. In many cases names emerge from internal catch phrases or trade descriptions. When launching a novel category part of the role of the name is to frame the benefits provided by the innovative products, which constitute that category. Consumer packaged goods companies use a host of methods to select brand and product names, the fresh produce industry has been more lax in its role in category and product naming. The purpose of this research is to introduce a systematic process to frame and name a new value-added fresh food category. A generalized model is presented then a case study using this approach is provided. A fresh value-added mushroom category made up of a set of products is used to demonstrate the framing and naming technique. A combination of expert/industry and consumer insight is obtained through multiple rating systems. Qualitative and quantitative measurement processes are applied to build towards a final selection of the new category name. An approach to communicating the key product benefits (framing) including; Pseudo Delphi, focus groups, Thurstone Case V, online survey, and conjoint analysis. This new framing and naming process creates a word bank and then systematically eliminates under-performing names and frames until an optimal descriptor is selected. Additional applications are suggested.