Sounding it out! Phonetic symbolism and children's brand name preference

With the growing number of brands entering the marketplace, phonetic symbolism can provide marketers with a means to create an inventive, yet meaningful brand name. This paper seeks to investigate children’s preference for phonetically manipulated brand names. An experiment was undertaken whereby 92 children (six to 12 years of age) indicated their preference for words which contain front and back vowel sounds across four juxtaposed products. Results showed that children prefer words as brand names when the attributes connoted by the vowel sound are congruent with product attributes, with preference shown to increase with age. Results will be of interest to those who are looking to select a new brand name and provide a unique contribution to existing marketing literature.