Creating brand personality with brand names
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Creating brand personality with brand names Richard R. Klink & Gerard A. Athaide
Published online: 28 May 2011 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011
Abstract As the elemental building block of the brand, the brand name represents a potential starting point for creating brand personality. Drawing on theory and research from sound symbolism, this study investigates how brand names can be formed to create brand personality, as defined by Aaker's (1997) Brand Personality Scale. Results indicate that brand names with back vowels better create a Ruggedness personality, while brand names with front vowels better create Sophistication and Sincerity personalities. Keywords Brand personality . Brand names . Sound symbolism
1 Introduction Brand personality is an important component of brand image (Plummer 1985; Keller 1993; Aaker 1997). A widely held contention is that preference for a brand is enhanced with greater congruity between human characteristics of the brand (i.e., its personality) and one's actual or ideal self (Sirgy 1982; Aaker 1997). A potential antecedent to brand personality is the brand name (Batra et al. 1993; Yorkston et al. 2010). While sound symbolism relates brand name sounds or letters with product attribute information, such as ketchup thickness or SUV size (Heath et al. 1990; Klink 2000; Klink 2003; Yorkston and Menon 2004; Lowrey and Shrum 2007), researchers acknowledge a number of important distinctions between product attribute associations and brand personality.
Both authors contributed equally to this work.
R. R. Klink (*) : G. A. Athaide The Sellinger School of Business and Management, Loyola University Maryland, 4501 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21210-2699, USA e-mail: [email protected] G. A. Athaide e-mail: [email protected]
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Mark Lett (2012) 23:109–117
First, brand personality tends to serve a more symbolic or self-expressive function (e.g., sincerity, sophistication, etc.), while product attribute associations tend to serve a more utilitarian function (e.g., speed, thinness, etc.) (Keller 1993; Aaker 1997). Second, brand personality tends to be relatively enduring and distinct (Aaker 1997). Third, brand personality may reflect emotions or feelings evoked by the brand (Keller 1993). Fourth, brand personality often arises from inferences about the underlying user or usage situation (Keller 1993). Particularly relevant to the study of brand name creation are the distinctions related to symbolism and distinctiveness. Brand names that create a symbolic image (through personality) may enhance future extension opportunities—i.e., brand extendibility may be greater for brand images that are symbolic, as opposed to functional (Park et al. 1991). Furthermore, brand names that create a distinctive image should enhance the product's competitive positioning. Hence, it is important to study the impact of a brand name on brand personality. Specifically, the purpose of our research is to examine how brand names can be formed to create brand personality. Our study draws on sound symb
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