Key Points:
- Avoid Anchoring Bias in Naming Discussions
Early name suggestions can skew the entire conversation. Prevent this by collecting anonymous input before open discussions begin. - Limit Group Size for Effective Stakeholder Input
Naming sessions work best with 6–8 participants. Larger groups should be split to ensure everyone has a voice and discussions remain productive. - Use Anonymous Polls to Encourage Honest Feedback
Polling before discussion creates psychological safety, reduces influence from hierarchy, and highlights group preferences objectively. - Test Names with Your Target Audience
Senior stakeholders often don’t reflect the end consumer. Ensure names resonate by testing them directly with your Gen Z or millennial audience.
The Challenge of Gathering Diverse Opinions
Let’s face it – getting everyone on the same page when naming a product or company can be a real headache. Every stakeholder brings their own ideas, preferences, and biases to the table. Naming experts Mike Carr and Ashley Elliott dig into this challenge in their podcast “Naming in an AI Age”, where they share practical wisdom from years of helping clients navigate these sometimes tricky conversations.
One of the most significant obstacles they identify is “anchoring bias” – when an early opinion or suggestion disproportionately influences the entire conversation. As Carr explains, “If someone throws out a name right off the bat, or a style of name right off the bat, then the conversation tends to evolve around that name.” This phenomenon mirrors what happens in negotiations when an initial price point anchors subsequent discussions.
Best Practices for Stakeholder Alignment
Achieving proper stakeholder alignment requires thoughtful planning and facilitation. The experts recommend several proven approaches:
Optimal Group Size and Composition
The ideal naming discussion involves 6-8 participants, which provides enough diverse perspectives, while still allowing everyone meaningful participation in an hour-long session. For larger organizations with 12-15 stakeholders, breaking into multiple smaller groups may be more effective.
Crucially, decision-makers should be present from the beginning. When senior leaders skip initial discussions and only review final options, they miss critical context about why certain names were advanced or eliminated. As Carr notes, “If they’re not involved, what typically happens at the end is you’ll present the top three names and they might say something like, ‘Well, these are okay, but what about this?'” – often suggesting ideas already discussed and dismissed earlier in the process.
Anonymous Polling Before Discussion
To ensure authentic stakeholder alignment, the experts recommend using anonymous polling before any verbal discussion begins. This approach has several benefits:
- It allows junior team members to express preferences without fear of contradicting senior leaders
- It establishes a baseline of group opinion before individual voices can anchor the conversation
- It creates psychological safety for honest feedback
After collecting these anonymous votes, displaying the results helps frame subsequent discussions in a balanced way that respects all perspectives.
Representing the Target Audience
A critical aspect of stakeholder alignment is ensuring target audience representation. The transcript highlights how many B2C naming discussions suffer from a fundamental flaw: the decision-makers aren’t representative of the actual consumers who will interact with the name.
“For a lot of our B2C clients that we’re going to be targeting, Gen Z or a millennial consumer, and there’s not a single Gen Z on their side in the call,” Carr observes. This disconnect can lead to names that appeal to the boardroom, but fail in the marketplace.
To address this gap, consider quantitative name testing with your actual target demographic. As Carr recommends, “Even if you don’t want to use us, we recommend that you test the name with your target and make sure that what you think is going to work is actually going to work.”
The Value of Diverse Perspectives
Successful stakeholder alignment doesn’t mean achieving consensus. Rather, it means creating space for authentic opinions to be expressed and considered. The experts emphasize that they’re “not looking for consensus”, but instead want “everyone to share a viewpoint that may be different.”
By implementing structured approaches to gathering feedback and including diverse voices, organizations can navigate the complex waters of naming with greater confidence, and ultimately select names that resonate with their intended audiences.
The naming process reflects broader organizational dynamics around decision-making and collaboration. By applying these stakeholder alignment principles, teams can not only develop stronger names, but also strengthen their collaborative processes for future initiatives.
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Podcast Transcript
Ashley Elliott (00:04):
Hello and welcome back to naming in an AI Age. Today we are here on location and we are going to talk about opinions. Everybody seems to have an opinion, but some people share more than others. So on client calls and on presentations, how do you get people’s opinions without them influencing the entire project or the room or how things go?
Mike Carr (00:25):
Yeah, and this is one of the hardest things to do, but I think one of the most important things to do, so there’s something called anchoring bias, and there’s a lot of research around this. If someone, for instance, in a negotiation, let’s say you’re trying to buy a house and they throw out a number right off the bat, well then the conversation from that point forward is anchored in the number that was thrown out. So if you’re the seller, you throw out a high number and then that whole conversation’s around negotiating around that high number, which is maybe ridiculously high. So you end up getting more money for the house. If you’re the buyer, you throw out a loan number. Same thing is true. So when it comes to naming, if someone throws out a name right off the bat or a style of name right off the bat, then the conversation tends to evolve around that name. So one of the things that we try to do in conversations is make sure that everyone understands that all opinions are welcome and not try to bias the conversation with advocating strongly for a particular style of name right out of the shoot.
Ashley Elliott (01:33):
I think that’s also, you do lean into a variety of styles too, not to just have all one style to where you’re anchored in that set of names as well. I know that it depends on how large of a group you’re working with. What’s an ideal amount of people on the call to be able to get everyone’s opinion, or do you always need every single person’s opinion on the call? What’s your perspective on that?
Mike Carr (01:52):
That’s a hard nut to crack, because we want on the call all the decision makers. It’s hard though, especially in large companies, large clients, to get the most senior person on the call. The reason that’s important though is they’ll educate one another during the process. So someone will throw out a name and then there’ll be a debate around that name. If the most senior person says something like, just bring me your top three names at the end of the process. Well, they haven’t had the value of understanding all the other options that have been considered listening to the debate around why certain names were thrown out and why other names were considered in influencing that conversation. So if they’re not involved, what typically happens at the end is you’ll present the top three names and they might say something like, well, these are okay, but what about this? Well, what about this was something that we talked about in that first round?
Ashley Elliott (02:45):
It’s like, oh my
Mike Carr (02:46):
Gosh, and they just been there. Or they might suggest something like, I don’t like any of these ideas, and they’ll come up with something totally different that nobody even knew about had they just been involved that first round. But going back to your question, what’s the ideal number? I would say six to eight folks in a call that’s an hour long is a perfect number for everyone to have an opportunity to discuss. We can certainly do it, and we’ve done it with just three or four. And certainly if it’s the founder and the founder just wants to be the only person involved and they’re going to influence the rest of the conversation, it’s just the founder. If we have 12, 15 or more, it’s usually better to break it into two calls. Even though they don’t get the benefit of hearing everyone else’s opinion, at least they have more opportunity to voice their own opinion. We might have a different kind of discussion to share with them some of the thinking of the other groups and some of their point, but I would say six to eight is probably the perfect size.
Ashley Elliott (03:40):
We’ve started doing more recently is having a poll. Can you explain a little bit about that, because that’s before the conversation starts and why we do that specifically? There are quite a few people.
Mike Carr (03:51):
What we’ve also found is if you have the decision maker on the call, and let’s say that decision maker is somebody’s boss’s boss’s boss, but they’re in the trenches, they’re the ones in the marcom area or the insights area, whatever, they’re the ones that are charged with making the name come alive. So they’ve got to be on the call too. Well, they may feel a bit intimidated and not share their opinions quite as freely. They don’t look dumb in front of the CEO of the company or their boss’s boss. So what we do, we do a couple things. First of all, we say we want everyone’s opinion. We’re not looking for consensus. We really want everyone to share a viewpoint that may be different regardless of who they’re, that doesn’t always work. So what we also do is we say at the end of the presentation, before there’s any conversation around which names you like and you don’t like, we’re going to take you a little poll.
(04:41):
It’s done anonymously. We’ll give ’em a QR code, and they take their smartphones out and they do it on camera. And the whole idea is you can vote for your top, let’s say five names, totally anonymously. And then we show the results of the poll before there’s any conversation. And so now you actually can see the group’s opinion as this is the name that maybe is the strongest, and we’re not, again, looking for consensus, but at least you have some idea. Well, these are the top five. So if there was somebody that might’ve started the conversation really dissing a name or being nervous about sharing their opinion about a name, they feel very safe because they’ve been able to vote for a name, give it that first place vote, and then they can have a conversation and see, oh, I just sort of like that name too. So that really, really helps. Then we open up the conversation afterwards.
Ashley Elliott (05:31):
I think it’s a great way to do that. It manages expectations a little bit. It also provides that wiggle room for people that may not have the freedom to express their opinion, and it kind of stabilizes the room, I think, a little bit to be able to openly discuss opinions based on, okay, what are the results? It doesn’t matter if it’s consensus or not. And it’s also not necessarily one person’s decision. There are a lot of different generations sometimes in the room, sometimes the people making decision aren’t necessarily the target market. So kind of balances that a little bit.
Mike Carr (05:58):
And that’s a great point for a lot of our B2C clients that we’re going to be targeting Gen Z or a millennial consumer, and there’s not a single Gen Z on their side in the call. There may be some millennials, but maybe they’re targeting a female millennial that has kids at home. There may be a few, but the majority of the team might not be in that segment. So you’re asking the team to draw conclusions about a name when their targets underrepresented in the room are not represented at all, and that’s a bit ridiculous. We used to be part of Nielsen, the market research firm, and Nielsen of course does quantitative research, so we love testing names. Even if you don’t want to use us, we recommend that you test the name with your target and make sure that what you think is going to work is actually going to work. And that’s usually a nice final check just to make sure you’re heading in the right direction.
Ashley Elliott (06:51):
Oh, we could do a whole nother podcast on name testing and how you’ve learned to do it over the years. Well, thank you for joining us today as we talked about opinions and managing expectations and allowing for voices to be heard on client calls. We’ll see you next time. See you.
