Alphanumeric brand names for global branding: Does the alpha matter?

Abstract

The growth in international marketing has highlighted challenges related to global branding strategies. International marketing managers often tend to underestimate challenges involved in maintaining consistency in brand meaning and associations across different countries and cultures. To address issues related to country specific interpretations of brand names, firms often use alphanumeric brand names (ABNs). ABNs consist of a mix of alphabets and numbers (Audi Q5) and are considered culturally neutral. The authors conduct a cross-cultural study to understand differences and similarities in consumer perceptions of Roman alphabets. Specifically, the authors compare consumer attitudes across United States (US) and India on three marketing-relevant dimensions. The results show interesting comparisons for various alphabets on three dimensions (degree of hedonism, masculinity and prestige) across India and US. While a number of alphabets are perceived similarly, for some alphabets there are significant differences in how people across the two countries perceive them.