Short CommunicationSpiky sounds sparkling: How voiceless consonants present in the brand name of a beverage are more appropriate in conveying its carbonation strength
Introduction
Carbonated water and beverages are available in most parts of the world and are even served with regular meals in some countries (e.g., Argentina, Netherlands, Germany) (Rodwan, 2018). In the US itself, between 2013 and 2018, sales of carbonated water experienced its fastest growth (compared to still water and other soft drinks) and is soon expected to reach US$24.5 billion, reflecting its very high consumer demand. Despite such popularity, little is known about how brands can convey the strength of carbonation to consumers using popular brand attributes (e.g., brand names). For example, San Pelligrino prides itself in soft, natural carbonation from the source at which it is bottled, whereas Schweppes Club Soda relies on synthesized carbonation resulting in greater fizziness. To date, linkages between a brand name and its carbonation expectation remain largely unexplored. In this paper, we investigate the link between voiceless (vs. voiced) consonants present within a brand name and expectations of carbonation strength, and provide evidence that voiceless (vs. voiced) consonants are more appropriate for carbonated (vs. still) water brands.
Section snippets
Theoretical background
A growing body of research has now established the cross-modal linkages between speech sounds and sensory attributes (e.g., shape, size, creaminess) (e.g., Crisinel et al., 2012, Gallace et al., 2011, Spence and Gallace, 2011, Pathak and Calvert, 2020, Sidhu and Pexman, 2018). Specific to the sensory domain of taste, research has also reliably demonstrated the link between vowels and consonants with tastes (e.g., long vowels with sweetness; Pathak, Calvert, & Motoki, 2020). Humans can perceive
Method and overview of studies
In the English language, the following six pairs of phonemes exist where the predominant difference is only voicing- /p, k, t, f, sh, s/ and /b, g, d, v, zh, z/ respectively (/zh/ as in measure). Out of these, /s/ vs. /z/ and /sh/ vs. /zh/ were excluded in the current research, as these sounds might evoke the association of fizzy drinks or a common association of /z/ sound with /fizz/, /sizzler/ etc. The rest of the four phoneme-pairs (e.g., /p/ and /b/) were used to create 24 word-pair stimuli
Study 1
In Study 1 participants were told that a company was looking for a brand name for two of its bottled water brands (a still water and a carbonated water) in a foreign country. Participants were told that they would see one brand name in the middle of the screen, which referred to either a still water brand or a carbonated water brand. They then had to rate the brand names on one attribute- how appropriate is the brand name for a still or carbonated water brand? The rating was done on a visual
Study 2
While Study 1 employed a rating task, in Study 2, a free-choice task was used where participants were asked to create new brand names for carbonated drinks. In addition to the carbonated water, an additional category of Cola drinks was introduced in Study 2 to increase the generalizability of our findings.
Study 3
In Studies 1 and 2, a rating task and a free-choice paradigm were used to arrive at the results. Research suggests that consumers often link carbonated (vs. still) water with angularity (vs. roundedness) (e.g., Bremner et al., 2013, Ngo et al., 2012). Study 3 aimed to use this indirect shape-sound paradigm to test our findings. Participants were told that they would see one word in the middle of the screen; they then had to rate it on how rounded or spiky they thought the sounds of the word to
Study 4
In the previous studies, we used word stimuli created from voiceless and voiced consonants. Such stimuli may not be equally pronounceable (e.g., Bakhtiari, Körner & Topolinski, 2016) and the ease (or difficulty) of pronunciation might influence the expected results. Similarly, the orthographic angularity of the letters themselves could confound the results (e.g., Doyle & Bottomley, 2011). For example, letters /k/ and /v/ are spikier than letters /p/and /b/ (Cuskley, Simner, & Kirby,2017). As a
General discussion
The current research investigated the effect of voiceless (vs. voiced) consonants present in brand names on the expected carbonation content of beverages. Across four studies, we demonstrated that hypothetical names containing voiceless (vs. voiced) consonants were more (vs. less) associated with carbonated (vs. still) water. The results of Study 1 (a rating task) and 2 (a free-choice task) demonstrated the association of voiceless (/p, k, t, f/) (vs. voiced, /b, d, g, v/) consonants and
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