Bottled Up or Poured Out: How Product Name Emotions Affect Appeal and Authenticity

Abstract

Although we know that product names influence audience evaluations of producers and their offerings, mechanisms behind the effect remain undertheorized. We propose that a classic psychological stimulus-and- response process is at play. Emotional contagion – ego’s propensity to experience emotions triggered by contact with alters or objects – suggests that product names that convey certain emotions to the consumers of these products will influence their evaluations. While the process is psychological, social context shapes the strength and valence in the stimulus-and-response relationship. We predict that the anti-mass production ideology and oppositional identity of contemporary craft markets (rooted in avid rejection of pecuniary motivation, template marketing, serial production and the like) produce reverse emotional contagion: Positively charged product names lead to negative evaluations of products and negatively charged ones lead to positive evaluations. We also predict a second-order effect of product name emotionality on appeal by way of perceived product authenticity which itself drives appeal in craft markets: Positive emotionality decreases authenticity perceptions and negative emotionality elevates them. We find empirical support for our conjectures in analyses of the U.S. craft beer industry between 1996 and 2012.