Statistics suggest name change success
Staines business owner seem to have developed a strategy that hopefully will lead onto the path to growth and prosperity. With the name change to Staines upon Thames the town will not only exude a warm and welcoming atmosphere it will also communicate sophistication and a sense that business owners and the population follow modern times.
Councillor Colin Davis and his team have conducted a business like investigation looking at the change or not-change of the name from all angles possible. One of the enterprises was a survey conducted on more than 2000 adults living in the UK. Out of this group 85% declared that they had heard of Staines before the survey and this group was used to evaluate the situation further.
Three questions around their opinion of Staines were given to the panellists including level of agreement whether Staines is a nice place to live, whether Staines is a nice place to visit and level of improvement after changing to Staines upon Thames.
With a long heritage of market research projects behind me I felt intrigued to calculate the weighted average number using a calculation which is typically used in the industry when a decision on a new product launch has to be made. And this is exactly the level of importance this decision carries for Staines.
The resulting numbers are 1.38 for nice to live, 1.45 for nice to visit and 2.89 for makes a difference. The numbers on its own do not mean a great deal especially when there is nothing to compare them to, like another town who considered the same strategy.
However I would like to draw attention to the numbers in relation to each other. The smallest rating was given to ‘nice to live’, which is quite understandable as this is a difficult question to decide for each panellist’s personal background and it depends on many factors. A place to visit has rated higher which again is easy to explain, a day out in Staines does not bear as many risks as moving there and so it is easier to imagine exploring Staines on a day out.
The surprising number for me is 2.89 for making a difference, which is nearly twice as high as both previous ratings. It includes all ratings for panellists who could not make up their mind; however it can be assumed that an average of 50% out of this group would have chosen a positive answer when probed further.
But what it definitely means is that the population of the United Kingdom whose 2080 representatives who took part in the survey are looking at the name change with a positive eye, and the company director who has to decide on the product launch for his company would probably have gone ahead based on these results.
Another interesting fact can be discovered when looking at the ratings for ‘would improve a lot’ and ‘would improve a little’ across national geographies. Whilst the average answers from North of England, East, London and South range from 22 – 27%, the Midlands rated an average of 30% and Wales even as high as 35%. Is it possible to say that areas like the Midlands or Wales who are experts in finding compelling ways to attract visitors to their beautiful counties understand the huge potential Staines upon Thames will offer?
Dr Sabine Lohmann