Creating a Strong Sports Shoe Brand

Abstract

This chapter, a sports shoe brand was created, applying the design rules from Chap. 5. A name with a back vowel (Bloyt) was created to represent the masculine brand, while Edely, which has two front vowels, was created to represent the feminine brand. A bold type font was used for the masculine brand, and Edely was written in a slender and rounded font. The masculine brand’s color was blue, and the feminine brand’s color was bright pink. To demonstrate that only the simultaneous application of congruent gender cues results in the most positive effect on brand gender and brand equity, the shoe brand was depicted in a print ad using the respective design elements for feminine and masculine brands. In an online survey, these stimuli were accompanied by radio advertising using a male speaker with a low voice (F0-Top at 180 Hz) for the masculine brand and a female speaker with a high voice (F0-Top at 540 Hz) for the feminine brand. The simultaneous application of distinctively masculine or feminine attributes for brand names, font, and color, combined with the voices and outward appearances of the sales representatives, produced greater gender perceptions and higher brand valuations for each brand than could be observed for brands that applied only moderately effective masculine or feminine attributes.