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Snyre for your nasal congestion: Using phonesthemes to imbue non‐word brand names with meaning

Stacey Brennan¹; Jasmina Ilicic²; Sheldon Danziger³

¹ The University of Sydney Business School The University of Sydney Darlington New South Wales Australia · ² Monash Business School Monash University Caulfield East Victoria Australia · ³ Coller School of Management Tel‐Aviv University Tel Aviv Israel

AbstractA brand name is a fundamental component of a brand's identity. This research introduces a novel linguistic tool for brand name creation: phonesthemes—sound and spelling letter clusters that are associated with one dominant meaning. For instance, sn, one of over 140 phonesthemes in English, consistently appears in words related to the nose or breathing (sneeze, sniff, snort). Six experiments reveal positive effects of phonesthemic non‐word brand names (e.g., Glif; gl‐; e.g., glow, glimmer; meaning “light”) on consumer preference, attitude, purchase intent, and choice when the dominant meaning activated by the phonestheme is semantically congruent with the product category or product attribute (e.g., luminant car wax), due to enhanced processing fluency. Phonological (sound) and orthographic (spelling) priming are eliminated as alternative explanations for the phenomenon. This research advances psycholinguistic research in marketing and the emerging area of brand linguistics by broadening the focus beyond brand name phonology.

DOI

10.1002/jcpy.1396

Volume

34 (4)

Pages

601-619

Language

en

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