An increasingly common strategy when naming new brands is to use an unconventional spelling of an otherwise familiar word (e.g., “Lyft” rather than “Lift”). However, little is known about how this brand naming strategy impacts consumers’ beliefs about the brand and, ultimately, their willingness to support it. Across eight experimental studies, we demonstrate that in general, consumers are less likely to support unfamiliar brands whose names are spelled unconventionally compared to brands that use the conventional spelling of the same word. This occurs because consumers perceive the choice of an unconventionally spelled name as an overt persuasion attempt by the marketer, and thus view the brand as less sincere. We demonstrate these effects are driven by persuasion knowledge using both mediation and moderation and show robustness by employing different types of unconventional spellings. Our studies suggest that, while marketers may choose unconventional spellings for new-to-the-world brands with the goal of positively influencing consumers’ perceptions, doing so may backfire. However, we also find that unconventionally spelled names do not produce a backfire effect when the motive for selecting the name is seen as sincere. Further, unconventionally spelled brand names may even be desirable when consumers are seeking a memorable experience.
That's a good question. It is of course very natural to be sad about a diagnosis of lung cancer. That's not the same as depression. Severe depression is not normal, even if it is somewhat common -- about one-third of patients do have that. The important thing is that the depression can be treated and patients can be helped.
Executive function (EF) is essential for humans to effectively engage in cognitively demanding tasks. In adults, EF is subserved by frontoparietal regions in the multiple demand (MD) network, which respond to various cognitively demanding tasks. However, children initially show poor EF and prolonged development. Do children recruit the same network as adults? Is it functionally and connectionally distinct from adjacent language cortex, as in adults? And is this activation or connectivity dependent on age or ability? We examine task-dependent (spatial working memory and passive language tasks) and resting state functional data in 44 adults (18-38 years, 68% female) and 37 children (4-12 years, 35% female). Subject-specific functional regions of interest (ss-fROIs) show bilateral MD network activation in children. In both children and adults, these MD ss-fROIs are not recruited for linguistic processing and are connectionally distinct from language ss-fROIs. While MD activation was lower in children than in adults (even in motion- and performance-matched groups), both showed increasing MD activation with better performance, especially in right hemisphere ss-fROIs. We observe this relationship even when controlling for age, cross-sectionally and in a small longitudinal sample of children. These data suggest that the MD network is selective to cognitive demand in children, is distinct from adjacent language cortex, and increases in selectivity as performance improves. These findings show that neural structures subserving domain-general EF emerge early and are sensitive to ability even in children. This research advances understanding of how high-level human cognition emerges and could inform interventions targeting cognitive control.
How do Great Gray Owls (Strix nebulosa) capture voles (Cricetidae) through a layer of snow? As snow is a visual barrier, the owls locate voles by ear alone. To test how snow absorbs and refracts vole sound, we inserted a loudspeaker under the snowpack and analysed sound from the loudspeaker, first buried, then unburied. Snow attenuation coefficients rose with frequency (0.3 dB cm−1 at 500 Hz, 0.6 dB cm−1 at 3 kHz) such that low-frequency sound transmitted best. The Great Gray Owl has the largest facial disc of any owl, suggesting they are adapted to use this low-frequency sound. We used an acoustic camera to spatially localize sound source location, and show that snow also refracts prey sounds (refractive index: 1.16). To an owl not directly above the prey, this refraction creates an ‘acoustic mirage’: prey acoustic position is offset from its actual location. Their hunting strategy defeats this mirage because they hover directly over prey, which is the listening position with least refraction and least attenuation. Among all birds, the Great Gray Owl has the most extreme wing morphologies associated with quiet flight. These extreme wing traits may function to reduce the sounds of hovering, with implications for bioinspiration.
geoff199 OP t1_jbblgr0 wrote
Reply to Consumers respond less positively to new products when their brand names use unconventional spellings of real words, like “Klear” instead of “Clear.” Findings showed that consumers saw these names as indicating the brand was less honest, down-to-earth and wholesome. by geoff199
From the Journal of Marketing: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00222429231162367
Abstract:
An increasingly common strategy when naming new brands is to use an unconventional spelling of an otherwise familiar word (e.g., “Lyft” rather than “Lift”). However, little is known about how this brand naming strategy impacts consumers’ beliefs about the brand and, ultimately, their willingness to support it. Across eight experimental studies, we demonstrate that in general, consumers are less likely to support unfamiliar brands whose names are spelled unconventionally compared to brands that use the conventional spelling of the same word. This occurs because consumers perceive the choice of an unconventionally spelled name as an overt persuasion attempt by the marketer, and thus view the brand as less sincere. We demonstrate these effects are driven by persuasion knowledge using both mediation and moderation and show robustness by employing different types of unconventional spellings. Our studies suggest that, while marketers may choose unconventional spellings for new-to-the-world brands with the goal of positively influencing consumers’ perceptions, doing so may backfire. However, we also find that unconventionally spelled names do not produce a backfire effect when the motive for selecting the name is seen as sincere. Further, unconventionally spelled brand names may even be desirable when consumers are seeking a memorable experience.