More Than (Brand) Names: The Impact of Vowels on Online Evaluations in Emerging Peer-To-Peer-Markets

Abs­tract:

Sound sym­bo­lism, other­wi­se known as pho­ne­tic sym­bo­lism, is a the­ore­ti­cal fra­me­work based on lin­gu­istic rese­arch. It is a well-known topic in mar­ke­ting rese­arch becau­se the impact of sounds in brand names on pro­duct infor­ma­tion, con­su­mer beha­vior, and pri­cing is evi­dent. As peer-to-peer mar­kets offer a hybrid mar­ket struc­tu­re that com­bi­nes onli­ne and offli­ne mar­ket cha­rac­te­ri­stics, (brand) names play an impor­tant role in incre­asing con­su­mer awa­re­ness. They are the first items con­su­mers see or hear and may thus convey infor­ma­tion, meaning trust and repu­ta­tion. Fol­lo­wing the the­ory of sound sym­bo­lism, this stu­dy has a two­fold aim. First, we stu­dy con­su­mer pre­fe­ren­ces for vowels in (brand) names by focu­sing on con­su­mer beha­vior and onli­ne con­su­mer ratings in a leading peer-to-peer plat­form. Second, our stu­dy is the first empi­ri­cal attempt in the con­text of the ride-sha­ring mar­ket, a fast-gro­wing mar­ket that has acqu­ired deep roots in the Uni­ted Sta­tes ($11,790 mil­lion in 2017). Using a data sam­ple of 125,999 enli­sted dri­vers on the car-sha­ring plat­form Bla­Bla­Car, regi­ste­red betwe­en 2004 and 2015, we dif­fer into the front, cen­tral, and back vowels to model the­ir effect on con­su­mer ratings. Our results show that con­su­mer brand names offer vario­us sound pat­terns worth con­si­de­ring for mar­ke­ting prac­ti­ces and brand naming stra­te­gies. More pre­ci­se­ly, mar­ke­ters sho­uld con­si­der the front vowel [i] and cen­tral vowel [a] for brand names to repre­sent poten­tial­ly che­er­ful sounds. Con­su­mers also favor popu­lar names. Both fac­tors indi­ca­te the signi­fi­can­ce of exi­sting repu­ta­tio­nal effects