Brand Names Language and Advertising April 22, 2010 Ehren Reilly
What is a Brand? •
A brand is a highly abstract, multifacted concept: –
Brand name
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Graphical trademark/logo
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Distinctive colors, patterns, type face
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Tag line or slogan
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Character/mascot
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Actual product(s)
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Corporate identity
What is a Brand? •
A brand is a highly abstract, multifacted concept: –
Brand name
–
Graphical trademark/logo
– –
Tag line or slogan
–
Character/mascot
–
Actual product(s)
–
Corporate identity
What is a Brand? •
A brand is a highly abstract, multifacted concept: –
Brand name
–
Graphical trademark/logo
– –
Tag line or slogan
–
Character/mascot
–
Actual product(s)
–
Corporate identity
What is a Brand? •
A brand is a highly abstract, multi-facted concept: –
Brand name
–
Graphical trademark/logo
– –
Tag line or slogan
–
Character/mascot
–
Actual product(s)
–
Corporate identity
What’s in a Brand, Besides the Name
“The ultimate driving machine”
History of Brands and Brand Name •
Brands before advertising use to tell property apart b owner – –
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Early use use of of brands brandsto todistinguish distinguishproducts products – –
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Brands on livestock, slaves, physical objects Brands on shipping crates Initials etched on hand-made goods Signatures on artwork
Industrial revolution (late 18th century) – – – – –
Mass production Consistent products from same manufacturer Branded Products Logos and brand names as marketing
Purpose: Telling products apart by producer
Brands Can Transcend Individual Products •
Virgin
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GE
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Kellogg’s
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Samsung Samsung
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Johnson & Johnson
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Sony
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Kraft
Brand Names As Advertising •
What function do brands serve for advertisers? – –
Distinguish product from competitor Repository of brand equity • •
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Be an advertisement for the product •
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The value of a brand The sum of all the knowledge, feelings, etc. that consumers have about the brand Where all that advertising exposure builds up in our culture Jiffy Lube, Oxy Clean, FreeCreditReport.com
What function do brands serve for consumers? – – –
Help tell products apart Make confident purchases Develop brand affinity
Types of Brand Names • • •
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Abbreviation (Ameriprise, Microsoft, Amtrak, FedEx) Acronym (UPS, IBM, TCBY, AFLAC, NFL) Appropriation/metaphor of existing word (Java, Blackberry, Caterpillar, Adobe) Descriptive (Toys R Us, E*Trade, Bath & Body Works) Alliteration, rhyme, humor (Dunkin’ Donuts, Piggly Wiggly) Evocative (Fandango, Yahoo!, London Fog) Neologisms (Xerox, Accenture, Verizon, Viagra, Lucent) Foreign word (Samurai, Häagen Dazs) Founders' names (Dell, Disney, Hewlett-Packard, Ford) Geography (Silicon Valley Bank, California Pizza Kitchen) Personification (Oracle, Midas, Betty Crocker, Uncle Ben)
Legal Issues with Brand Names •
Brand names are arbitrary labels...right?
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Or do they make falsifiable claims?
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Can brand brand names names create createimplicatures implicaturesabout about the nature of the brands? Can the puffery defense apply to brand names?
Subtle Suggestion in Brand Name •
Many brand names are more subtle, and don exactly create implicatures –
ExtenZe
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Overstock.com
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Price Club
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Burger King
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Aspercreme
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Whole Foods
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Zoloft
Brand Names that Make Implicature •
Does the maxim of quality affect how we interpret brand names? – – – –
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Oxy-Clean Lean Cuisine Quarter Pounder Coca-Cola
Maxims of quantity, relevance? – – – – –
Puffs Plus Windows XP Pro Pepsi Max Bob’s Discount Furniture Cost Plus World Market
Different Intuitions about How Meaningfu these Modified Brand Names Are? Why?
Brand Names That Make Legally Enforceable Product Claims •
Kellogg’s Low Fat Granola – Granola must be low in fat (as defined by the FDA) •
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Hidden Valley Light Ranch – Salad dressing must be “light” (as defined by the FDA) •
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3 grams or less of total fat per serving
Forfoods foodsderiving derivingmore morethan than50 50percent percentofof calories from fat, light produc For calories from fat, thethe light product is reduced in fat by at least 50 percent; or For foods deriving less than 50 percent of calories from fat, the light product is either reduced in calories by at least one third or reduced in fat by at least percent; or For foods with modified sodium content, the light product must be reduced in sodium by at least 50 percent.
FreeCreditReport.com – Credit report must be free
“Free” Credit Reports •
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Your credit report is free from AnnualCreditReport.com FreeCreditReport.com will fetch your free cred report for you if you enroll in their $18/month . credit monitoring service service. FreeCreditReport.com Ad vs. FTC Parody Ad FTC made a regulation that any products advertising “free” credit reports must include a prominent link to AnnualCreditReport.com FreeCreditReport.com responded by making th “free” credit report now cost $1. Is this now a false advertising claim of “Free”?
FreeCreditReport.com IMPORTANT INFORMATION: When you order your $1
Credit Report and free Score here, you will begin you 7-day trial membership in Triple Advantage. If you don't cancel your membership within the 7-day trial period*, you will be billed $14.95 for each month that . YouYou you continue your membership. membership may may cancel cancel your your trial membership anytime within the trial period without charge. Why isn’t my Credit Report free? Due to federally imposed restrictions, it is no longer feasible for us to provide you with a free Experian Credit Report. So, f now, we’ll be charging you $1 for your Report...we’ll donate to charity.
Psychology of Brands and Brand Names •
Do brands "matter" for consumers? –
Yes! •
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Experimental subjects enjoy their favorite brand more when they they know knowits itsidentity identitythan thanwhen whenthey they receive receive it it anonymously. This manifests as a different neural response to the same physical stimulus, depending on whether the subject was told the brand of the stimulus* If you’re a Coke loyalist, Coke tastes better when you know its Coke.
* Maclure, S. et al. 2004. Neural Correlates of Behavioral Preference for Culturally Familiar Drinks. Neruon, Vol. 44, 379–387
Psychology of Brands and Brand Names •
Do novel/unfamiliar brand names actually communicate semantic meaning? –
Yes! Consumers treat brand names as search attributes. •
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Experimental subjects make different inferences abou products’ quality, value, and overall desirability based * on very subtle attributes of the brand names.
This effect occurred even when the subjects had no other information about the product, besides the bran name.
Klink, Richard R. 2001. Creating meaningful new brand names: A study of semantics and sound symbolism. Journal of Marketing. Wanke, Michaela et al. 2007. Brand Name Influence on Brand Perception. Psychology & Marketing
Brand Names as New Lexical Mater • •
Many brand names are newly invented word What do coined brand names mean? –
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How do coined brand names get their meanings? –
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Aside from just arbitrarily referring to the produc
Aside from advertising campaigns, product packaging, etc.
How do any new words get their meaning?
From their parts
Morphology in Linguistics •
In linguistics, morphology is the study of words and word parts, and the principles governing how word parts can be combined.
Basics of Morphology •
Morphemes are the smallest independently
meaningful units of language. – – –
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Root words (cheese, the, of, speak, fast) -, pre-, counter-, re-)
Suffixes (-ing, -ize, -s, -ly, -th)
Morphological processes are processes that
combine morphemes together to make word
Morphological Processes •
Affixation: Combining root words with prefixes and/or
suffixes. –
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Compounding: Combining multiple root words with one another another in in aasequence. sequence. –
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dog-s, drink-ing, stupid-ity, warm-th, pre-fix, un-cool
snow-ball, flash-pasteurize, carry-out, law-suit
Morphological blending: Cominbing roots together like
compounding but with sound overlap and possible deletion of sound material. –
bridezilla, smog, spork, outro, automagically, urinalysis
Productive Morphology •
Productive morphology: Morphology rules
that allow us to make new words out of old words.
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Language speakers have the ability to correctly understand completely new, unfamiliar words
Productive Morphology •
Resealability
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Vegetarianize
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Demagnifier Demagnifier
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Aporkalypse
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Gayby boom
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Alcoholiday
Sound Symbolism •
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Typical words have an arbitrary sound-meaning association. A special class of words are sound-symbolic, meaning that the sound matches the meaning in some way. – –
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Some refer directly to sounds: crash, pitter-patter, piss, thud, sizzle bling, see-saw, badonkadonk, Others are more abstract: ppety-hop, hi wiggle-waggle
Phonesthemes are sound units that are not exactly morphemes
(they are not decomposable segments, and they don’t have independent meaning), but which seem to form cluster of words with similar meanings. – –
glitter, gleam, glimmer, glisten, glow, glare sway, sweep, swerve, swim, swing, swish, swivel, swoosh, swan, swirl
Semantic Content of Coined Brand Names •
Many pharmaceutical brands use a combination of English and Latin roots, affixes, sound-symbolism, compounds and blending to form semantically rich coined names: – – – – – – – – – – –
Zoloft Prozac Vallium Wellbutrin ExtenZe Viagra Claritin Flonase Levitra Rogaine Ambien
Semantic Content of Coined Brand Names •
Technology companies also like coined, semantically rich names: –
Agilent
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Lucent
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Compaq
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Pentium
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Verizon
Semantic Content of Other Type of Brand Names •
What semantic content is present in brand names that are not novel, coined words? – – – – – – –
Betty Crocker, Uncle Ben Morgan Stanley, Solomon Smith Barney
Reebok’s DMX shoe technology cellular technologies: PCS, 3G Hidden Valley salad dressing Arrowhead water Häagen Dazs
Brand Names in the Linguistic Ecosystem • •
Brand names are real words
Morphological and grammatical processes that apply to ordinary words also apply to brand names. –
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Frequently-used brand names gradually drift from proper nouns to common nouns and verbs •
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Googling, Xeroxing, Witing-out
Burts Bees makes the best chapstick
Brand name becomes genericized –
In legal terms, the trademark become “diluted”
Genericized Brand Names • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Aspirin AstroTurf Band-Aid Chapstick FedEx Frisbee Google Hacky Sack Hi-Liter Jacuzzi Jeep Jell-O Jet Ski Kitty Litter
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Kleenex Laundromat Magic Marker Ping-Pong Play-Doh Plexiglas Polaroid Popsicle Post-it Q-tips Rollerblade Rolodex Scotch Tape Styrofoam
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TelePrompTer Tupperware Vaseline Velcro Walkman Wite-Out Wite -Out Windex X-Acto Xerox
