Vipiz Is Fast, Vopoz Is Slow: Phonetic Symbolism Is the Way to Go!

We examine the effect of phonological awareness (ability to identify sounds in words) on children's product evaluations, following exposure to a phonetically manipulated brand name (e.g., Vipiz/Vopoz). We demonstrate that priming children to undertake soundbased processing of marketing stimuli will enhance phonetic symbolism effects for those with low phonological awareness

Signatures of mutational processes in human cancer.

All cancers are caused by somatic mutations; however, understanding of the biological processes generating these mutations is limited. The catalogue of somatic mutations from a cancer genome bears the signatures of the mutational processes that have been operative. Here we analysed 4,938,362 mutations from 7,042 cancers and extracted more than 20 distinct mutational signatures. Some are present in many cancer types, notably a signature attributed to the APOBEC family of cytidine deaminases, whereas others are confined to a single cancer class. Certain signatures are associated with age of the patient at cancer diagnosis, known mutagenic exposures or defects in DNA maintenance, but many are of cryptic origin. In addition to these genome-wide mutational signatures, hypermutation localized to small genomic regions, 'kataegis', is found in many cancer types. The results reveal the diversity of mutational processes underlying the development of cancer, with potential implications for understanding of cancer aetiology, prevention and therapy

A practical guide to single-cell RNA-sequencing for biomedical research and clinical applications.

RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) is a genomic approach for the detection and quantitative analysis of messenger RNA molecules in a biological sample and is useful for studying cellular responses. RNA-seq has fueled much discovery and innovation in medicine over recent years. For practical reasons, the technique is usually conducted on samples comprising thousands to millions of cells. However, this has hindered direct assessment of the fundamental unit of biology-the cell. Since the first single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) study was published in 2009, many more have been conducted, mostly by specialist laboratories with unique skills in wet-lab single-cell genomics, bioinformatics, and computation. However, with the increasing commercial availability of scRNA-seq platforms, and the rapid ongoing maturation of bioinformatics approaches, a point has been reached where any biomedical researcher or clinician can use scRNA-seq to make exciting discoveries. In this review, we present a practical guide to help researchers design their first scRNA-seq studies, including introductory information on experimental hardware, protocol choice, quality control, data analysis and biological interpretation

Celebrity co-branding partners as irrelevant brand information in advertisements

This study examines the effect of irrelevant information presented in marketing communications by a celebrity co-branding partner on consumer judgments of a partner brand. Three experimental conditions manipulate the relevancy of information: relevant information, irrelevant information, and relevant plus irrelevant information. Findings from this study suggest that when a celebrity co-branding partner does not provide information about the partner brand nor brand benefits, consumer judgments in the ability of the partner brand to deliver benefits, their purchase intent and their match-up perceptions become less positive. Consumer brand benefit beliefs and purchase intentions show evidence of a dilution effect only when consumers perceive a mismatch between the celebrity and brand and when presented with irrelevant information supplied by a celebrity in addition to relevant brand information. Interestingly, not only the relevant celebrity characteristics associated with the brand but also the irrelevant information provided by the celebrity in the advertisement influence perceptions of match-up or congruence. Brand managers should ensure a celebrity co-branding partner does not provide irrelevant brand information within advertisements to avoid brand benefit belief, purchase intent and match-up dilution.1 page(s

Being true to oneself : investigating celebrity brand authenticity

Celebrity brand authenticity is introduced as a construct that represents consumer perceptions of celebrities being "true to oneself" in their behaviors and interactions with consumers. A scale is developed through two purification stages and the scale's predictive validity is assessed. First, the meaning of celebrity brand authenticity to consumers is explored. Second, the Authenticity Inventory from the psychology literature is adapted to develop a scale for consumer perceptions of celebrity brand authenticity. Celebrity brands are perceived as true to self when they appear genuine in their relationships with consumers and behave in accordance with their perceived held values. Evidence of the convergent and discriminant validity of the celebrity brand authenticity scale is provided, which confirms celebrity brand authenticity as distinct from celebrity attachment, despite containing relational items. Finally, the predictive power of celebrity brand authenticity is confirmed through positively influencing consumer intentions to purchase an endorsed brand. Brand managers can use celebrity brand authenticity to position or develop celebrity brands, as well as in the selection of celebrity endorsers.11 page(s