Doug Berdie, the manager of the strategic brand research division of Total Research, a market research company, sees a new cohort of car buyers emerging: women in their 40's who like looks, styling, driving safely at high speeds and driving often just for fun, and for whom money is no object.
Mr. Mendelsohn, 32, is a manager of research at Hall & Partners USA, a communications and brand research firm in Manhattan.
Tourism officials have hired two brand research firms to convene focus groups and conduct international surveys of attitudes.
"It's very hard for companies now to offer rationales to differentiate their products," said Robert Passikoff, founder and president of Brand Keys, a New York brand research firm.
"The days when people looked to one person to tell them how to entertain [and] live tastefully are gone," said Allen Adamson, chairman of Landor Associates, a brand research firm.
"On television the Olympics looks like an athletic event, but on location it's a big business convention," said Nicholas Donatiello Jr., president of the brand research firm Odyssey.
Mrs. Sloterbeck, who is 26 and is known as Faith, is an account manager at Hall & Partners USA, a communications and brand research firm in New York.
"For brands to succeed, you really need to think about what expectations you want people to have of your products and services," said Allen Schiffenbauer, chief brand research officer at the Brand Consultancy in Washington.
There are both rewards and risks in naming a product for a celebrity, said Allen Schiffenbauer, chief brand research officer at the Brand Consultancy in Washington, a company that does just what its name says.
