The Art of Misspelling: Unraveling the Diverging Effects of Misspelled Brand Names on Consumer Responses

Leah Warfield Smith and Annika Abell

Journal of Consumer Research, 2026, vol. 52, issue 5, 957-979

Abstract: Linguistic characteristics influence how consumers recognize and associate with brands. Although recent research shows the negative impact of misspellings in brand names on sincerity and brand attitudes, many brands successfully use this strategy to create unique brand identities. We argue that not all misspellings have the same negative impact and thus explore how consumers process brand names through both linguistic and conceptual fluency. In a series of six experiments, we present and examine a typology of misspellings and their differential impact on fluency and resulting consumer attitudes, inferences, and behavioral intentions. This typology of brand name misspellings provides a practical framework guiding brand naming strategy. We demonstrate that minor misspellings can be just as effective as correct spellings. More severe misspellings can also be effective if consumers perceive them as relevant. The findings reveal how managers can reap the benefits of misspelling, such as memorability, uniqueness, or trademark acquisition, and avoid the overall negative effects.

Keywords: brand names; psycholinguistics; linguistic fluency; conceptual fluency; spelling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jcr/ucaf020 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:jconrs:v:52:y:2026:i:5:p:957-979.

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Consumer Research is currently edited by Bernd Schmitt, June Cotte, Markus Giesler, Andrew Stephen and Stacy Wood

More articles in Journal of Consumer Research from Journal of Consumer Research Inc.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().