Names Are the Mirrors of the Soul: The Role of Possessive Brand Names in Brand Evaluations

Marketing practitioners frequently rely on brand anthropomorphism (i.e., endowing brands with humanlike features (Puzakova and Kwak 2017) as an effective strategy that increases affective reactions and product evaluations (Aggarwal and McGill 2012). One of the popular means that brand strategists rely on to encourage anthropomorphism is endowing a brand with a human name. For example, Lily takes photos of consumers’ adventures, Dave assists customers with banking fees, and a cup of fresh coffee is served at Tim Horton’s. Furthermore, a more nuanced analysis of these humanlike names points out to subtle semantic variations in a way these brand names are formed. For example, marketers use a possessive form in Tim Horton’s and Trader Joe’s brand names, whereas a non-possessive version is used in the Lily and Dave brand names. Does this subtle difference matter, and if yes, in what way? In this regard, prior research in psychology and linguistics indicates that possessive forms have crucial affective consequences (Shi et al. 2011). Despite the widespread prevalence of humanlike brand names and theoretically important consequences of possessive semantic units, to the best of our knowledge, no prior studies have examined the effectiveness of using possessiveness as a linguistic cue in anthropomorphized brand names. In response, we attempt to fill this gap. Our key contribution lies in demonstrating an important role of brand name possessiveness in consumers’ anthropomorphized brand inferences and evaluations. As a theoretical basis, we draw from both psychological ownership theory and linguistics research that demonstrate that perceptions of an individual’s ownership toward an object is easily formed by presenting people with possessive pronouns preceding the target of ownership (Pierce, Kostova, and Dirks 2003; Shi et al. 2011). Thus, we propose that the use of a possessive form in brand names can lead to greater consumer inferences that a brand is owned by a specific external entity (implied in the brand name).