ABSTRACT

This chapter seeks to advance our understanding of brand name meaning and of consumer response to brand names in general. It discusses presentation mode as a linguistically based contextual factor relevant for understanding how, when, and what meaning is derived from brand names. Consumer understanding of a brand—its image and its meaning—derives, at least initially, from the brand name and associations it elicits. Brand names are complex verbal stimuli with meaning that operates at many different linguistic levels. Having focused predominantly on sound-based meaning, consumer researchers have only scratched the surface in building theory about brand name meaning and consumer processing of brand names. In addition to sound, brand name meaning may also be derived from morphology and semantics. Although researchers recognize the role of morphology and semantics in brand name creation, little work that has been done in this area tends not to be strongly based in the psycholinguistics literature and lacks both an organizing framework and empirical focus.