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Project

A quest for the perfect brand name: the role of physical brand name features on brand memory, preference and performance (FWOTM1093)

Research has consistently shown that distinctiveness is of paramount
importance in establishing good brand names. Distinctive brand
names are overall better remembered and for the category of luxury
brands, they have been demonstrated to be preferred over non- or
less distinctive brand names. Although studies have primarily
focused on semantical brand name features to operationalize the
concept of distinctiveness, word frequency has been put forward as a
proxy for brand name distinctiveness. Since word frequency is
inversely related to the physical word property length, it has been
hypothesized that longer words are more distinctive and thus better
recognized and preferred as names for luxury brands. However,
recent work in cognitive science puts forward orthographic
neighborhood size as a potential confound to the relationship
between word length and memorability. Furthermore, visual
properties, such as font and typeface, have been found to moderate
how semantical distinctiveness influences brand name preference.
Consequently, physical properties of brand names, besides word
frequency, show increasing promise to serve as more parsimonious
conceptualizations of brand name distinctiveness. The aim of my
proposal is to construct a novel conceptualization and measurement
instrument of brand name distinctiveness and extend this to brand
name effectiveness measures like brand preference, willingness to
pay and perceived product attributes.
Date:1 Nov 2021 →  Today
Keywords:Brand name memorability, Brand name preference, Psycholinguistic brand name characteristics
Disciplines:Cognitive processes, Sensory processes and perception, Advertising, Consumer behaviour, Marketing communications