Symbolic Sequence Effects on Consumers’ Judgments of Truth for Brand Claims

Abstract

We introduce symbolic sequence effects-the consequences of whether the sequence of the initial letters of a pair of words (e.g., a word representing a putative cause and another word representing a putative effect) conforms to the structure of symbolic sequences that are stored in the mind as overlearned natural language traces ("natural sequence"). We synthesize insights from psychophysics as well as numerical and natural language symbolic representations to demonstrate that consumers are able to unconsciously perceive the mere sequence of symbols contained in a brand claim, and that this sequence information influences judgments of truth. Across three experiments, we showed that when a brand claim is structured in a way that is consistent with the natural sequence of symbols ("A causes B" rather than "B causes A"), people experience feelings of sequential fluency, which in turn influences judgments of truth. This occurs despite the inability of participants to attribute the true source of the feelings. Our results suggest that carefully designed brand claims are likely to benefit from this natural sequencing. These findings provide important contributions to the literatures on processing fluency, branding, and advertising. These findings also have sobering societal implications and warn that fake news might be more persuasive if the perpetrators understand symbolic sequencing techniques.

The affect premium for brands: Brand‐first versus attribute‐first presentation of product information impacts willingness to pay

“…Mental representation arising from viewing healthy food items to the left (vs. right) of unhealthy food items fits with existing representations of healthy and unhealthy food, enhancing preference for healthy food (Romero & Biswas, 2016). In the context of branding, research shows that existing mental representation of numeric sequences can impact consumer judgments of brand claims (King & Auschaitrakul, 2020). Impact of information order on mental representation, thus, could provide cognition‐based explanations for order effects.…”

Deception and the marketplace of ideas

“…Even when repeated information is suspect, people may think of it as true because it feels familiar and is relatively easy to process. Feelings of fluency can also cause people to perceive statements that follow a natural, or expected, sequence as truer (King & Auschaitrakul, 2020). Interestingly, even when people know information is false, seeing it multiple times makes it seem less unethical to share with others (Effron & Raj, 2020).…”

“…Even when repeated information is suspect, people may think of it as true because it feels familiar and is relatively easy to process. Feelings of fluency can also cause people to perceive statements that follow a natural, or expected, sequence as truer (King & Auschaitrakul, 2020).…”

Understanding message (de)coding in multi-lingual slogans: industrial perspectives from Turkey and Russia

“…Other studies (Henderson et al, 2003;Klink and Athaide, 2014) highlight the level of economic development as a contextual factor and indicate that visual elements of a brand may possess a more pronounced impact in emerging countries than developed ones. Emerging economies further host a new and wealthy consumer base who expect to be impressed with novel ways and methods in their communication with brands ( € Ust€ uner and Holt, 2010; King and Auschaitrakul, 2020). This contextual processing structure draws attention to the fact that many brands prefer a "same-brand but different-slogan" strategy in their international markets emphasizing cultural nuances.…”

“…These symbolic meanings manifested by brand slogans highly rely on the economic maturity of the market, with prominent conspicuity in the emerging markets as opposed to subtle conspicuity in the mature markets (Pino et al , 2019; Üstüner and Holt, 2010). Furthermore, the emerging markets are witnessing an accumulation of wealth and the rise of symbolic consumption among a newly emerging consumer base for whom consumption is mainly a status-seeking behavior (Kim and Kim, 2018; King and Auschaitrakul, 2020). As a result, the flow of international brands into the emerging markets, in an attempt to appeal to a new and larger consumer base, further emphasizes the importance of the context specificity of the study.…”