This research shows that people implicitly and explicitly prefer sounds that are more common among top brand names (e.g., “S,” “M,” “L,” and “E”). Implicit preferences correlate with explicit willingness to pay more for hypothetical brands with preferred sounds. This suggests that the prevalence of certain sounds among top brands may be a reflection of people’s phonetic preferences. We examine possible processes underlying phonetic preferences, and offer evidence excluding phonetic embodiment, pronunciation-based fluency, and familiarity-based fluency. The results suggest a phonetic frequency process account. Substantively, these findings indicate that certain sounds should be given priority when crafting brand names.
People—be they politicians, marketers, job candidates, product reviewers, bloggers, or romantic interests—often use linguistic devices to persuade others, and there is a sizeable literature that has documented the effects of numerous linguistic devices. However, understanding the implications of these effects is difficult without an organizing framework. To this end, we introduce a Language Complexity × Processing Mode Framework for classifying linguistic devices based on two continuous dimensio...
Abstract When developing new brand names, marketers face the dilemma of how similar their new brand name is or should be to familiar brand names in the market. The current research tests the complete range of conditions exploring how the degree of similarity of a new brand name to an existing one may affect attitudes toward the new brand name. The authors first replicate an inverted-U pattern suggested by congruency theories. However, this result holds only in the case of positive pre-existing a...
Last. Michal Kouril(Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center)H-Index: 14
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Recent research has demonstrated that brand name sounds can influence consumer behavior. Sound symbolism, the link between sound and meaning, can convey product information, enhance affinity, and increase purchase intentions. This study examines sound patterns of Interbrand top 100 brand names, including three previously unexamined sound categories. Results show that top brand names have different sound patterns than general brand names. The pattern of differences suggests that sound symbolism m...
#2Lan Wu(CSU: California State University)H-Index: 6
Sound symbolism research provides considerable support for the relationship between sound and meaning. What is not well understood is how best to imbed sound symbolism to create meaningful brand names. This research investigates three basic decisions or issues that marketers face when embedding sound symbolism in brand names—i.e., (a) where to position the imbed, (b) what type of imbed to use, and (c) what is the effect of combining imbeds. Results of study 1 indicate that imbeds placed after th...
Non-arbitrary correspondences between spoken words and categories of meanings exist in natural language, with mounting evidence that listeners are sensitive to this sound symbolic information. Native English speakers were asked to choose the meaning of spoken foreign words from one of four corresponding antonym pairs selected from a previously developed multi-language stimulus set containing both sound symbolic and non-symbolic stimuli. In behavioral (n = 9) and fMRI (n = 15) experiments, partic...
Last. Piotr Winkielman(UCSD: University of California, San Diego)H-Index: 44
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Can mouth movements shape attitudes? When people articulate different consonants (e.g., B or K) they press the tongue and the lips against various spots in the mouth. This allows for construction of words that feature systematic wanderings of consonantal stricture spots either from the front to the rear (inward; e.g., BENOKA) or from the rear to the front (outward; e.g., KENOBA) of the mouth. These wanderings of muscular strictures resemble the oral kinematics during either deglution (swallowing...
Abstract I define “sensory marketing” as “ marketing that engages the consumers' senses and affects their perception, judgment and behavior. ” From a managerial perspective, sensory marketing can be used to create subconscious triggers that characterize consumer perceptions of abstract notions of the product (e.g., its sophistication or quality). Given the gamut of explicit marketing appeals made to consumers every day, subconscious triggers which appeal to the basic senses may be a more efficie...
#2Sabine Albers(LMU: Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich)H-Index: 1
Last. Tetyana Stavniychuk(LMU: Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich)H-Index: 1
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This article demonstrates the potential of sound iconicity for automatic text analysis. This study claims that—at least in poetic language—the ratio of plosive versus nasal sounds in a text predicts its emotional tone as it is perceived by readers; that is, poems that have a relatively high frequency of plosive sounds are more likely to express a pleasant mood with high activation, whereas a relatively high frequency of nasal sounds indicates an unpleasant mood with low activation. Moreover, the...
Conventional guidelines for naming new products overlook possible individual-level differences that may affect response to new brand names. This research draws on sound symbolism theory to investigate whether gender affects response to new brand names. Specifically, two studies are conducted to examine whether females respond more favorably than males to brand names with front vowels and whether males respond more favorably than females to brand names with back vowels. Results indicate that gend...
There are three fundamental problems in Sijtsma (Psychometrika, 2008): (1) contrary to the name, the glb is not the greatest lower bound of reliability but rather is systematically less than ω t (McDonald, Test theory: A unified treatment, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, 1999), (2) we agree with Sijtsma that when considering how well a test measures one concept, α is not appropriate, but recommend ω t rather than the glb, and (3) the end user needs procedures that are readily available in open source softwa...
Extant research suggests that emerging market firms that use foreign branding suffer from incongruent branding practices. When consumers realize the discrepancy between a foreign-sounding brand nam...
#2Gemma A. Calvert(NTU: Nanyang Technological University)H-Index: 35
Abstract This paper examines how certain speech sounds within a brand name can alter expectations about the product’s taste. Across two studies we demonstrate that the presence of voiced (b, d, g, z & v) vs. voiceless (p, t, k, s & f) obstruents (speech sounds produced when airflow is obstructed in the oral cavity) in a chocolate’s brand name can alter its expected taste as bitter vs. sweet. We propose this is because voiced obstruents are typically of low frequency (frequency code hypothesis), ...
Cognitive biases play an important role in our life. These biases allow humans to make mental shortcuts and quick decisions. They also lead to less-than-rational judgements. This paper focuses on the less-explored realm of cognitive biases in technical communication, with broad implications in engineering communication. It assembles cognitive biases in four categories that resonate with technical communicators and users: how we draw from past experiences, how we respond to stimuli, how we make d...
Ozellikle 2000’li yillarin basindan itibaren, ses sembolizmi uzerine yapilan pazarlama calismalarinda artis olmasina ragmen, mevcut literaturde bu calismalari butuncul bir sekilde ele alan herhangi bir calisma bulunmamaktadir. Bu boslugu doldurmak icin bu calisma 1970-2019 yillari arasinda ses sembolizmi olgusunu inceleyen 46 tane pazarlama calismasina iliskin genis capli bir inceleme sunmaktadir. Derlenen makaleler, calismalarin kapsami, yontemi ve incelenen kavramsal alanlar acisindan icerik a...
#1Pradnya Joshi(WT: West Texas A&M University)H-Index: 1
#2Ann Kronrod(University of Massachusetts Lowell)H-Index: 9
Conveying the environmental friendliness of a product is both crucial and challenging. One efficient way to overcome this challenge is by using brand names as a way to signal environmental friendli...
The implicit association test (IAT) is widely used in psychology. Unfortunately, the IAT cannot be run within online surveys, requiring researchers who conduct online surveys to rely on third-party tools. We introduce a novel method for constructing IATs using online survey software (Qualtrics); we then empirically assess its validity. Study 1 (student n = 239) revealed good psychometric properties, expected IAT effects, and expected correlations with explicit measures for survey-software IATs. ...
The purpose of this paper is to examine how developing country brand name and brand origin affect the customer’s evaluation of the brand in radically new high-tech products. Using processing fluency as a theoretical underpinning, this study can answer the following questions: first, does foreign brand name (developed vs developing Asian brand name) affect the customer’s attitude toward the brand? Second, does the brand origin (developed vs developing country) moderate the effect of foreign brand...