News24 brings us further evidence that target audience members are not literal deconstructionists in practice, even though in theory (focus group testing) they always are.
We give you yet another powerful name that market research would have killed with “science”:
London – An eatery in Sheffield, central England, called the ‘Polonium Restaurant‘ is getting more business from local customers in the aftermath of the poisoning of a former Russian spy, The Sun tabloid reported on Tuesday.
The owner of the restaurant, Boguslaw Sidorowicz from Poland, told the newspaper that bookings had gone up since polonium-210 – the radioactive substance of which large quantities were found in Alexander Litvinenko’s urine after his death – hit the news.
Sidorowicz, 46, said he named the restaurant, which he has been running for about 18 months, after a band of which he was a member nearly 30 years ago.
“It was Marie Curie who discovered polonium and she was Polish,” he told the tabloid.
“In 1978, a friend of mine who was studying chemistry at Sheffield University suggested it as the name for the band. So that’s what we called our folk group, without realising just how poisonous a substance it was.”
“When I saw the restaurant’s name all over the papers – I thought someone had booked us an advert.”
“We’ve had an incredible 728 000 hits on the Polonium website, and have been inundated with calls from around the globe,” he said.
The Polonium Restaurant in Sheffield, England, has had slow business since it opened less than two-years ago. Then, British investigators found traces of polonium in former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko. The news sent customers flocking to the restaurant.
Focus group testing of names is fine if your goal is to guarantee failure. Any naming company or branding consultant that would engage in focus group testing of names is either unsure of themselves or wants to abdicate responsibility for the final choice. Or they just want the extra money that testing brings with it.
Understanding why the name Polonium attracts diners rather than repels them is all the knowledge any company needs when naming anything. It’s not complicated, and it’s summed up nicely right here.
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One comment on “Eat More Polonium”
There was also a band called Anthrax, once. Not without their fans, at least until 2001…