HOW THE FIT OF NUMBERS IN BRAND NAMES WITH PRODUCT CATEGORY AFFECT CONSUMER REACTIONS

摘要

Study 1 examined the frequency of numbers in thousands of books published within a year. The results showed that MCN were used more frequently than all other numbers in a diverse set of domains. Study 2 showed that for over a dozen product types, brand names including MCN were favored more than other brand names including any other numbers and brand names including MCN could even compete against brand names including non-MCN that were highly associated with the specific product categories. Using a direct comparison of brand names with and without MCN, Study 3 further showed that brand names including MCN achieve relatively higher choice shares than brand names including other numbers. Using a between-subject design, Study 4 compared consumer attitudes toward various brand extensions whose brand names included MCN, non-MCN associated with the brand extension category and non-MCN associated with the parent brand name. We found that brand names including MCN were more likely to be preferred over those including non-MCN highly associated with the product domain or the parent brand name. A mediation analysis showed that the product-number associations were the main mediator of the effects of numbers in brand names on consumer preferences.