Names are not like other words. When a real word is used as a name, it changes; its prior associations weaken or adapt based on the name’s context. So to “slack” means to shirk work, but as a name in the context of productivity software, Slack seems not to mean that. Similarly, a “yelp” is the sound of an animal in pain, but as a review site name it doesn’t bring up those associations.

When I present brand name candidates, I caution clients to not take the words literally because consumers don’t.

How is it exactly that names are perceived differently than their real-word counterparts? Do our brains reveal processing differences in how we perceive a brand name versus a regular word?

Research is now underway to answer those questions.

Using functional MRI (fMRI) technology that measures and maps brain activity, researchers Dr. Sandra Virtue, PhD. and Darren S. Cahr will observe how the brain lights up when exposed to trademarks. The hypothesis is that trademarks will activate the parts of the brain corresponding with non-literal thinking, the same parts that light up processing metaphors, poetry, and idioms.

Prior research by Virtue et al. on the neural processing of nonliteral language (Vance and Virtue, 2011) used divided visual field techniques; the research-in-progress will provide a more direct view into the brain as it is exposed to trademark and non-trademark stimuli.

When I asked Dr. Virtue about her research, she said,

“I believe that neuroscience studies have a lot of promise to expand upon our current knowledge about how consumers process and distinguish between different types of trademarks, even beyond what we suggest in our paper.”

Tantalizing!

I don’t know yet how the research exhibits will appear, but I imagine setting up contrasting pairs of text and images could be a starting point.

Same word, but does the brain see them that way?

If trademarks, whether text or image, activate the right side of the brain more compared to non-trademarks, it is objective evidence that trademarks are not taken literally. While this has always been advice I’ve given to my clients, hard proof would be even more persuasive.

If trademarks are non-literal, then we branders must consider suitable evaluation and decision approaches in light of that. Does a purely rationale decision method make sense? How do we evaluate something that may resist logic? Can we learn anything from how we critique other non-literal forms, like metaphor and poetry, to guide our judgement of candidate names?

I certainly don’t know the answers to these questions If you have ideas, please share them in the comments section below. Thank you for contributing!

I’ll provide an update of the research results as I learn of them.

Vance, Kristy and Sandra M Virtue. “Metaphoric advertisement comprehension: The role of the cerebral hemispheres.” Journal of Consumer Behaviour 10 (2011): 41-50.

Operative Words

The Neuroscience of Naming: Exciting Research Underway!