Advertising Recall

The authors report the results of a laboratory experiment examining the effects of the meaningfulness of brand names on recall of advertising. The findings indicate that a brand name explicitly conveying a product benefit {e.g., PicturePerfect televisions) leads to higher recall of an advertised benefit claim consistent in meaning with the brand name compared with a nonsuggestive brand name (e.g., Emporium televisions), Conversely, a suggestive brand name leads to lower recall of a subsequently advertised benefit claim unrelated In product meaning (e.g.. superior sound) compared with a nonsuggestive brand name. The authors discuss implications of these findings for marketers with respect to advertising strategies and the optimal use of meaningful brand names in building and managing brand equity. Brand names come in many different forms—they can be based on real peopie, places, animals, birds, things, and objects or just be made up. The choice of a brand name has been suggested as one important means lo build brand equity for a new product (Aaker 1991. 1996; Keller 1993, 1998). Choosing the proper brand name—often the centerpiece of introductory marketing programs—can enhance brand awareness and/or help create a favorable brand image for a newly introduced product. Recognizing the important and complex role of brand names as part of marketing strategy, several different possible criteria have been proposed for choosing brand names to build brand equity (Robertson 1987). One oflen-noted branding objective is to choose "inherently meaningful " brand names, so that the name itself conveys relevant product information. Brand names can be made meaningful in a variety of different ways. For example, brand names can be ehosen to reinforce semantically th