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CONSUMER
PSYCHOLOGY
Journal of Consumer Psychology 22 (2012) 37 54

Managing sensory expectations concerning products and brands:

Capitalizing on the potential of sound and shape symbolism
Charles Spence
Crossmodal Research Laboratory, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3UD, UK

Received 28 June 2011; received in revised form 13 September 2011; accepted 14 September 2011
Available online 10 November 2011

Abstract

In this article, the evidence demonstrating the existence of a variety of robust crossmodal correspondences between both sounds (phonetic
speech sounds, tones, and other parameters of musical expression) and shapes, and the sensory attributes (specically the taste, avor, aroma,
and oral-somatosensory attributes) of various foods and beverages is reviewed. The available research now clearly suggests that marketers can en-
hance their consumers' product experiences by ensuring that the sound symbolism of the brand name, as well as any shape symbolism of/on the
labeling, and even the very shape of the packaging itself, sets up the right (i.e., congruent) product-related sensory expectations in the mind of the
consumer. In this review, the rapidly-growing literature on the topic of sound and shape symbolism is critically evaluated. Potential caveats, lim-
itations, and problems of interpretation with previous studies are highlighted. The question of whether this approach to sensory marketing should
be considered as implicit (or functionally subconscious) is also addressed. Finally, some of the relative strengths and weaknesses of this approach
to modulating a consumer's product-related expectations (relative to various other approaches) are considered.
2011 Society for Consumer Psychology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Sound symbolism; Shape symbolism; Crossmodal correspondences; Congruency; Sensation transference; Multisensory; Packaging; Branding; Labeling

Introduction softness is influenced by olfactory cues (Churchill, Meyners,

Most of our everyday experiences, at least the pleasant ones,
are multisensory. A consumer's brand and product experiences
are no exception, as many sensory marketers are increasingly
coming to realize (e.g., Hultn, 2011; Hultn, Broweus, & van
Dijk, 2009; Krishna, 2010; Lindstrom, 2005; Spence, 2002).
That said, introspection often tells us that we see color only
with our eyes, that we feel softness exclusively with our finger-
tips, and that we taste the crunch of the potato chip only with
our mouths. However, the empirical evidence that has emerged
from the psychology and neuroscience laboratories over the last
few years tells a very different story. In fact, it has now become
increasingly apparent that what we see, and how we feel about
it, are also influenced by what we happen to be smelling at the
time (Dematt, sterbauer, & Spence, 2007; Li, Moallem, Paller,
& Gottfried, 2007; Spence, 2008). Similarly, our perception of
Griffiths, & Bailey, 2009; Dematt, Sanabria, Sugarman, &
Spence, 2006; Laird, 1932), and crispness turns out to be as
much a matter of what we hear, as about what we actually feel
in the mouth (see Spence & Shankar, 2010; Spence, Shankar, &
Blumenthal, 2011; Zampini & Spence, 2004).
One aspect of multisensory perception that has started to
gain increasing importance over the last couple of years relates
to the topic of crossmodal correspondences (Spence, 2011a,
2011b, 2011c). Generally-speaking, crossmodal correspon-
dences can be defined as a tendency for a feature, or attribute,
in one sensory modality to be matched (or associated) with a
sensory feature, or attribute in another sensory modality (Parise
& Spence, in press a). One ubiquitous crossmodal correspon-
dence is that between larger objects (no matter whether seen
or felt) and lower-pitched sounds, and smaller objects and
higher-pitched sounds (Parise & Spence, 2009; Walker &

Fax: +44 1865 310447.

E-mail address: charles.spence@psy.ox.ac.uk.

1057-7408/$ - see front matter 2011 Society for Consumer Psychology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jcps.2011.09.004
38 C. Spence / Journal of Consumer Psychology 22 (2012) 3754
Smith, 1985). In this case, at least, the correspondence reflects a
fundamental law of physics. The two classes of crossmodal cor-
respondence that I wish to look at in this article are commonly-
referred to as sound and shape symbolism. Sound symbolism is
the name given to the association that people experience be-
tween specific sounds (including speech sounds) and particular
stimulus attributes (e.g., as when they associate words contain-
ing the i sound with smallness). Shape symbolism refers to the
similar crossmodal mapping that exists between abstract shapes
and other sensory attributes (e.g., as between sharp pointy
shapes and bitterness or carbonation in foods and beverages).
Put simply, when the different sensory attributes of a product,
or its packaging, or of the environment in which that product is
purchased, used, or experienced match (or correspond) crossmod-
ally, then this can impact positively on the consumer's overall
multisensory consumer experience. In this chapter, I want to re-
view the evidence demonstrating that our rapidly growing under-
standing of the psychological mechanisms underlying crossmodal
correspondences, and in particular sound and shape symbolism,
can be used to set up the appropriate sensory expectations in the
mind of the consumer which, in turn can enhance the consumer's
multisensory experience of both products and brands.
In order to try and keep this article manageable, I will focus on
the use of sound and shape symbolism in the food and beverage
sectors. However, it should be noted that the findings outlined
here are equally applicable to a number of different classes of
product, everything from portable electronic goods to prescription
medications, and from fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs) to
major household investments, such as cars (e.g., Abel & Glinert,
2008). Interestingly, many of these crossmodal effects appear to
operate on an implicit level (i.e., without the consumer necessarily
being aware of what is going on). Hence, it is not uncommon to
find that, when asked, consumers deny being influenced by
sound and shape symbolism, and yet carefully controlled studies
of their behavior, in both the laboratory and in the marketplace,
tell a very different story (see also Cheskin, 1972).
Sound symbolism in the marketplace
Marketers have long been aware of the non-arbitrary relation-
ship that exists between a brand's success in the marketplace and
the speech sounds that are contained in the brand name itself. So,
for example, 30 years ago, Ira Schloss who was, at the time, assis-
tant research director of the Advertising Research Foundation,
noted that the letter k was significantly over-represented
among the top 200 brand names during the late 1970s think
Kraft, Kellogg's, Kodak, KFC, etc. (Schloss, 1981). He also
pointed out that there were far fewer brands starting with the letter
s than would have been expected by chance alone, given the dis-
tribution of words in the dictionary starting with this letter. Fol-
low-up studies published a few years later came to essentially
the same conclusion regarding the success of brand names begin-
ning with the k sound (Vanden Bergh, 1990; Vanden Bergh,
Adler, & Oliver, 1987; see also Abel & Glinert, 2008). Indeed,
the publication of such findings may help to explain the promi-
nence of this letter in so many of today's most well-known, and
successful, brandnames think K-Mart, IKEA, TK Maxx (in
UK, TJ Maxx in North America), etc.
Other commentators, meanwhile, have been tempted to attri-
bute the historic failure of certain brands, such as the Ford
Edsel, named after Edsel Ford, a relation of the company's foun-
der (Wallace, 1975), and launched back in 1958, to the poor
choice of brand name by the marketers concerned (Hartley,
1992; see also Cheskin, 1972; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edsel,
especially Section 3.3, downloaded on 14/07/2011; Vanden
Bergh et al., 1987). In this regard, it is interesting to note how
many of Ford's successful car models in more recent times have
had names ending in the letter a think Ford Cortina, Ford Fi-
esta, Ford Granada, Ford Sierra, and Ford Ka. Other seemingly
non-coincidental combinations of letters appearing in brand
names include the letters 'i', and often also 'd', and l found in
the majority of the budget supermarket and store chains currently
doing so well in the UK (e.g., Aldi, Lidl, Londis, Iceland,
and Primark; Lotto may be one of the few exceptions to this gen-
eral pattern). Is this more than mere coincidence, one might ask? I
would argue that in many cases it is. What is more, scientific re-
search is now starting to provide some intriguing insights into
the putative principles underlying many of these examples of
sound symbolism in the marketplace.
For many years now, researchers have argued that there is a
non-arbitrary relationship between the words, or rather, the speech
sounds, that we happen to use to name objects and the properties
that those objects possess (see Hinton, Nichols, & Ohala, 1994;
Nuckolls, 2003; Robson, 2011, for reviews). As will become ap-
parent below, many of the consonant and vowel sounds found in
English, not to mention in other languages, appear to have different
crossmodal associations linked to them. Of course, there is always
a danger here that one can read too much into apparent examples of
sound symbolism, seeing patterns where all there really is, is mere
coincidence (as may well be the case in the case of Ford cars end-
ing in -a; see also Saussure, 1916). Fortunately, however, statisti-
cal techniques now exist with which to determine the significance
of such patterns of crossmodal correspondence (see Spence,
2011c), both in the psychology or linguistics laboratory, and,
more importantly, out there in the marketplace.
When i = small: Mil, mal, and the success of the Mini!
I will illustrate the principle of sound symbolism with an exam-
ple: There are good grounds to believe that brands that are associ-
ated with small objects, and/or companies that are associated with
low prices, would do well to include the [i] sound in their brand
name. Indeed, this may be the reason why, as we just saw, the let-
ter i appears in so many of the names of those successful budget
supermarket chains. It likely also explains, at least in some small
part, the continued success of the Mini car brand. Could a large
car ever have succeeded with such a small-sounding name? 1
(In fact, the word mini actually means tiny in French as an
1
True, the Innity car marque has more i's than a Mini, but in this case,
the semantic meaning of the word may override the sound symbolic associa-
tions present in the word itself.
 C. Spence / Journal of Consumer Psychology 22 (2012) 3754
adjective and a prefix, as in the English word miniskirt, but is used
much more commonly than in English).
The first researcher to pick-up on the association between the
letter i and smallness was Edgar Sapir back in 1929. He demon-
strated that the majority of people (80%), when given the
choice, chose the nonsense word Mil to describe a small table,
and the nonsense word Mal to describe a large table (rather
than the other way round). Sapir went on to highlight the fact
that the same sound symbolic relationship was observable in the
speakers of various different languages, including in a group of
Chinese participants (see also Hinton et al., 1994; Newman,
1933). These results were taken to show that this particular exam-
ple of sound symbolism probably had more to do with the speech
sounds themselves than with any semantic meaning that these par-
ticular vowel sounds might have (e.g., as in English words such as
millimeter, miniscule, tiddler, tinsy, etc. vs. words such as large,
grand, etc.).
Subsequent research has demonstrated that the mapping of i to
small (and a to large) constitutes one of the more robust examples
of sound symbolism to have been discovered to date (Hinton et al.,
1994; Newman, 1933). In fact, over the years since Sapir's (1929)
ground-breaking study was first published, sound symbolism ef-
fects associated with a wide variety of different vowels and conso-
nants have been documented (see Hinton et al., 1994; Nuckolls,
2003). What is more, these effects have been demonstrated in
many different cultures (e.g., see Davis, 1961; though see also
Diffloth, 1994; Ultan, 1978).
Phonetics and sound symbolism
One problem for research in the area of sound (or phonetic)
symbolism is that the literature is both broad and diverse (e.g.,
see Hinton et al., 1994). Hence, in order to keep things manage-
able in this review, I want to focus primarily on the sound symbol-
ism effects associated with the distinction between front and back
vowel sounds, and with the class of stop consonants known as plo-
sives (see Ladefoged, 1993; MacKay, 1978). Consonants and
vowels are discriminated from one another by their manner of ar-
ticulation: The front/back vowel distinction, for example, refers to
the location of the tongue in the oral cavity during pronunciation.
Front vowels are those where the highest point of the tongue is in
the front of the mouth (e.g., as when pronouncing the i in hit or
bin). By contrast, back vowels are produced when the highest
point of the tongue is in the back of the mouth instead (e.g., as
when pronouncing the u sound in bun or the o sound in Begley, 2002; Belli, 2001; Collins, 1977; Douglas, 1981; Lowrey
home). The front/back distinction can be thought of as a continu-
um going from the frontal vowel sounds in words like beat and
bit through bet, bait, bat, boat, bought, posh, but, widely recognized as constituting an important component of a
put, and finally boot (these examples are taken from Yorkston
& Menon, 2004). Generally-speaking, frontal vowels are higher in
pitch than back vowels. According to the results of one study,
brand names containing such frontal (as compared to back) vowels
(think Tiffany and Pepsi) will be perceived as smaller, faster, ligh-
ter (as compared to darker), lighter (as compared to heavier),
milder, softer, weaker, thinner, colder, prettier, friendlier, more
feminine, and, finally, more bitter (Klink, 2000; cf. Walker &
Smith, 1985).
39
Consonants are often grouped into categories such as stop con-
sonants and fricatives. In this review, I will focus on those words
that start with (or contain) plosive stops, that is, words with any
one of the following letters b, hard c (as in Coke), d, g,
k, p, q, and t. Note that the abrupt popping sound of a plo-
sive stop consonant involves the complete closure of the articula-
tors. In the English language, air is prevented from escaping from
the oral cavity when making a plosive sound by placing the ton-
gue against the roof of the mouth (alveolar ridge, palate, or
velum) or lips (or glottis, if you include glottal stops). This is fol-
lowed by a sudden explosive release of air from the mouth. By
contrast, nasal stops, otherwise known as nasals, are continuants.
They involve the continuous release of air from the nose rather
than the mouth, as in the case of m and n. Note that nasals
are stops by virtue of the complete closure of the articulators
that is involved (rather than as a result of the manner of air re-
lease). The sudden release of air that is characteristic of plosive
stop consonants therefore contrasts with the slow and continuous
release of air in both fricative consonants (as in s, f, v, and z)
and nasal stop consonants. Generally-speaking, fricatives tend to
produce higher-frequency sounds than stop consonants. Words
containing fricative (as compared to stop) consonants will, all
other things being equal, be perceived as smaller, faster, lighter
(in weight), and more feminine (Klink, 2000).
Another important classification, but one that will not be fo-
cused on here, is that between voiced and voiceless consonants.
Voiced consonants such as the fricatives z and v involve the
vibration of the vocal chords, whereas voiceless fricatives do
not. In the case of plosives, the vibration of the vocal fold begins
earlier for voiced consonants such as b, g, and d than for
voiceless consonants such as p, k, and t. Brand names con-
taining voiceless (as compared to voiced) stop consonants are
perceived as smaller, sharper, more feminine, faster, and lighter
in weight, than words containing voiced consonants (see Abel
& Glinert, 2008; Klink, 2000). Meanwhile, brand names contain-
ing a voiceless (as opposed to a voiced) fricative, will be per-
ceived as faster, more feminine, and softer.
Sound symbolism and brand name development
Marketers, and others charged with the development of novel
brand names for products/companies, have apparently taken the
implications of the large body of research on the topic of sound
symbolism very much to heart (e.g., see Abel & Glinert, 2008;
& Shrum, 2007; McNeil, 1982, pp. 228230; Vanden Bergh et al.,
1984; Shrum & Lowrey, 2007). Indeed, brand names are now
brand's overall capital (King & Cook, 1990; McNeil, 2003; Zin-
khan & Martin, 1987). Over the last decade or so, a number of
studies have been published demonstrating that the consonant
and vowel sounds incorporated into a variety of putatively new
(but actually fictitious) brand names are associated with very dif-
ferent attributes in the minds of consumers. In fact, the sound sym-
bolism approach has been used by marketers to study the
development of brand names for products in many different sec-
tors everything from consumer electronics through to
40 C. Spence / Journal of Consumer Psychology 22 (2012) 3754
prescription medication (Abel & Glinert, 2008; McNeil, 2003).
Typically, in order to assess the meaning that people associate
with particular speech sounds, researchers give participants a
pair of meaningless names, that vary in just a single speech
sound, and ask them to pick one of the two that better represents
(or matches) the concept, or attribute, under consideration. Here,
though, I will restrict the discussion to those results that are rele-
vant specifically to the naming of food and beverage products.
For example, in one study, Yorkston and Menon (2004) dem-
onstrated that people's impressions of a new food product could
be shaped by the vowel sounds that were contained in the product
name itself. Undergraduates were more likely to believe that an
ice cream would taste creamier, smoother, and richer when it
was given the brand name Frosch than when it was called
Frisch instead. Obviously, neither of these brand names is, in-
and-of-itself, particularly meaningful. The idea here though is
that there is some form of sound symbolic relationship (or cross-
modal correspondence; see Spence, 2011c) between the o sound
in the middle of the word Frosch that is more congruent with a
creamier/smoother/richer-tasting product than the i sound (a
frontal vowel) embedded in the middle of the word Frisch.
In another study, Richard Klink (2000) presented a group of
business graduate students with pairs of fictional brand names for
a wide range (nearly 20) of different products. While many of the
results of this study have been described already, I want here to
focus on those results involving participants' evaluation of three
food and beverage items: lemonade, ketchup, and beer. When
given the choice, the students thought that a lemonade with a
brand name having a higher-frequency frontal vowel sound (such
as the /I/ as in bilad) was more likely to taste bitter than a fictional
brand name containing a lower-frequency back vowel (such as the
/o/ sound in bolad). Similarly, when it came to ketchup, the stu-
dents' responses indicated that they thought that a brand name con-
taining an initial lower-frequency back vowel sound (such as the
/o/ in nodax) was more likely to be thicker than a brand name con-
taining an initial higher-frequency front vowel (such as the /I/
sound in nidax). Meanwhile, the name godan (containing an initial
back vowel) was associated with a darker beer than the word gidan
(containing a more frontal vowel instead).
At this point, however, it is important to note that there are
several potential problems with the interpretation of the two stud-
ies just-mentioned (Klink, 2000; Yorkston & Menon, 2004). First
off, it should be born in mind that none of the participants in ei-
ther study actually got to taste or evaluate (i.e., physically interact
with) any of the food or drink items whose name they were being
asked to judge. Consequently, it is possible that what participants
were actually doing in these studies was simply matching the
sounds present in the putative brand names with the sounds pre-
sent in the words used to describe the product attributes, rather
than with the imagined physical (or sensory) attributes them-
selves (cf. Simner, Cuskley, & Kirby, 2010).
To put this potential criticism more concretely, let's take
Klink's (2000) finding that people expect a lemonade called
bilad to taste more bitter than one called bolad: This result
would be predicted if the participants given this seemingly non-
sensical task were using the heuristic (to guide their respond-
ing), of matching the vowel sounds present in the brand name
with those present in the name of the attribute that they were
supposed to be judging (the /I/ sound appears in both the pre-
ferred brand name bilad and in the taste descriptor bitter).
The question of just how many of the results reported by
Klink, Yorkston and Menon (2004), and others in this area
can be explained in this manner is one that will require further
analysis/research in order to resolve unequivocally.
A second potential limitation with the interpretation of the
two studies just mentioned concerns the fact that they were car-
ried out on undergraduate students. As a consequence, it is hard
to know how generalizable the findings would be to other
populations and/or to other age groups (e.g., see Henrich,
Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010; Jones, 2010). Once again, a simi-
lar criticism can also be raised against many of the other studies
that have attempted to assess the implications of sound symbol-
ism research for marketing purposes (e.g., Heath, Chatterjee, &
Russo France, 1990; Lowrey & Shrum, 2007; Ngo, Misra, &
Spence, 2011; Spence & Gallace, 2011).
Third, while Klink's (2000) study provided support for sev-
eral different kinds of sound symbolism, there was a lack of
theoretical explanation as to why many of these effects were
observed. The problem here is that without having any insight
into the underlying neuroscientific causes of the crossmodal
correspondences that were documented, it is hard to know
when exactly (in real life) the principles should be expected
to apply, and whether or not they could be extended to other
brands/classes of product not explicitly tested in these studies.
It is, for example, unclear on the basis of Klink's empirical
findings whether it is specifically increased bitterness that is as-
sociated with words containing frontal vowels, such as i, or
whether instead it might be an increase in the intensity of any
tastant (i.e., no matter whether it happens to be bitterness,
sweetness, sourness, saltiness, or even savory- or umami-ness;
see de Arauju, Kringelbach, Rolls, & Hobden, 2003) that ex-
hibits this particular sound symbolic correspondence.
Crossmodal correspondences between tastes/flavors and
(speech) sounds
In early research in this area, Kristian Holt-Hansen (1968)
from the University of Copenhagen, demonstrated the existence
of a specific crossmodal correspondence between the taste/flavor
of beer and the pitch of a simultaneously-presented sound. The
participants in this study were given a glass of beer and a tone
generator to play with. They were instructed to taste the beer
and turn the knob until the frequency of the tone matched the fla-
vor of the beer. The participants chose tones in the 510520 Hz
range for regular Carlsberg Lager while preferring 640670 Hz
tones for the Elephant brand beer. This difference in participants'
responses was presumably driven by differences in the sensory
attributes (e.g., bitterness) of the two beers that they were evalu-
ating. Bizarre though these results might sound, they have subse-
quently been replicated, at least in part, by Rudmin and Cappelli
(1983; see also Holt-Hansen, 1976).
In 2009, Crisinel and Spence used a simplified version of the
Implicit Association Test (IAT; see Greenwald, McGhee, &
Schwartz, 1998, 2003; Greenwald, Nosek, & Banaji, 2003),
 C. Spence / Journal of Consumer Psychology 22 (2012) 3754
in order to demonstrate that people match bitter foods with low-
pitched sounds and sour-tasting foods with sounds having a
higher-pitch (see also Crisinel & Spence, 2010a, b). In fact,
the IAT has been shown to provide a quick and easy means
of testing for the existence of various crossmodal correspon-
dences (see also Dematt et al., 2006, 2007; Parise & Spence,
2012). That said, one limitation with Crisinel and Spence's
study is that the names of foods that were either sour (lime,
lemon juice, vinegar, etc.) or bitter (e.g., coffee, tonic water,
beer, etc.) were presented, rather than the actual foods them-
selves. As Simner et al. (2010) have subsequently pointed
out, this leaves open the possibility that what Crisinel and
Spence's (2009, 2010a) participants may actually have been
doing is matching the phonetic attributes of the specific words
used to label the sour and bitter foods rather than necessarily
sour- and bitter-tasting foods themselves. 2
Crisinel and Spence (2010b) addressed this potential criticism
of their original findings by directly testing the crossmodal corre-
spondence between actual tastes and flavors and sounds varying in
both their pitch and in the class of instrument used to make them.
The participants in this study were given plastic cups containing
12 different solutions. They tasted each solution in turn with
the order of presentation of the solutions counterbalanced across
participants. The participants were asked to match the taste/flavor
of each solution with the sound made by one of four different clas-
ses of musical instrument (piano, brass, string, or woodwind) play-
ing one of 13 different notes going from C2 (64.4 Hz) to C6
(1046.5 Hz) in intervals of two tones. Among a number of other
findings, Crisinel and Spence's results highlighted the fact that
people tend to match bitter- and umami-tastes with lower-pitched
sounds and sweet and sour tastes with higher-pitched notes. Fur-
thermore, bitter tastes were predominantly matched with brass in-
struments while sweet tastes were matched with the sound of the
piano instead. More recently, Crisinel and Spence (in press a,b,
2011) have conducted further studies in which participants have
had to match a variety of different foodstuffs, oral-somatosensory
textures, and wine-related odors to musical stimuli varying in pitch
and class of instrument.
Elsewhere, researchers have assessed the relationship be-
tween taste and audition using stimuli that are much more
closely related to actual speech sounds. So, for example, the
participants in a study by Simner et al. (2010) had to select
from several different auditory scales the sounds that best-
matched each of the four basic tastes (sweet, sour, bitter, and
salty). The tastants were presented at one of two different con-
centrations, either medium or high. The auditory scales F1,
F2, voice discontinuity, and spectral balance varied in ways
that, to some extent (at least for the first three scales), matched
the phonetic qualities of human speech. In particular, while var-
iations in F1 correspond to variations in vocal height, F2 corre-
sponds (at least for the range of stimuli used in Simner et al.'s
study) to the front/backness of vowel sounds. Voice discontinu-
ity maps onto the interruptions in vocal quality that occur, for
example, when one goes from smooth to more staccato sounds.
2
Note that we have already come across this criticism in relation to the inter-
pretation of Klink (2000) and Yorkston and Menon's (2004) studies.
41
The final scale, spectral balance, consisted of white noise vary-
ing from low- to high-frequency.
The participants in Simner et al.'s (2010) study mapped sour
tastes onto sounds that had a higher-frequency spectral balance, a
higher F1, and a higher F2 than the sweet tastes (cf. Crisinel &
Spence, 2009). Participants' ratings of the salty and bitter tastes
fell somewhere in-between the other two tastes. In terms of the
voice discontinuity scale, the sweet taste was judged as being
smoother (or more continuous) than any of the other tastants.
When presented at the higher concentration, the tastants were
mapped onto sounds that were more discontinuous. These sounds
also had a higher-frequency spectral balance, a higher F1, and a
higher F2. While the marketing implications of Simner et al.'s find-
ings are not so easy to draw, the results are nevertheless important
in demonstrating that certain phonetic features map onto specific
tastants, not to mention differing concentrations of those tastants.
Taken together, then, the results of several studies, from both
the psychology laboratory and the marketing classroom, now
support the claim that there is a robust sound symbolic associa-
tion between increases in the intensity of a tastant (any tastant,
as it happens) and higher-frequency sounds (such as in frontal
vowels; see Klink, 2000; Simner et al., 2010).
Let us, then, move on from basic tastes and flavors to more
complex oral-somatosensory food and drink experiences and see
how they are mapped onto specific speech sounds. In research con-
ducted here at the Crossmodal Research Laboratory in Oxford, we
have demonstrated that people map sourness (e.g., as in the acidic
taste of cranberry juice) onto words starting with a harder plosive
sound (Tuki and Takete), while pairing foods with a creamier tex-
ture (e.g., as in a Brie cheese) with more rounded speech sounds
instead (such as Lula and Maluma; see also Gallace et al., 2011;
Spence & Gallace, 2011). The participants in our studies rated
chocolates with a crunchy texture, or center (e.g., Mars Maltesers),
and chocolate with mint chips, onto words containing harder-
sounding plosives (like t and k) than regular milk chocolate,
or chocolates having a caramel center (such as Cadbury Caramel
Nibbles; Ngo et al., 2011; Spence & Gallace, 2011; see also Ngo
& Spence, 2011). Other crispy and crunchy foods, such as crisps,
otherwise known as potato chips, were also paired with words con-
taining harder plosive sounds such as kiki, tuki, takete, and
decter, 3 as compared to more rounded sounds of bouba,
lula, maluma, and bolobo. In fact, some years ago now,
Vickers (1984, p. 162) noted that there was even a correspondence
between the sensory qualities of dry foodstuffs and the words used
to describe those attributes, specifically crispy and crunchy (the
word crispy having a higher frequency than the word crunchy; see
also Dijksterhuis et al., 2007).
Taken together, then, the results reported in this section dem-
onstrate that there are a number of robust crossmodal correspon-
dences between the phonetic attributes of speech sounds, and the
tastes, flavors, and oral-somatosensory attributes of food and
3
According to Jools Simner (pers. comm., 09/05/2011), there is actually
nothing particularly hard about these speech sounds, phonetically speaking,
thus it may turn out that what is critical here is the angularity of the graphemes
that happen to be associated with these phonetic sounds (see also Westbury,
2005).
42 C. Spence / Journal of Consumer Psychology 22 (2012) 3754
drink items. Note also that in all of the studies just-mentioned
(Gallace et al., 2011; Ngo et al., 2011; Simner et al., 2010; Spence
& Gallace, 2011), and in contrast to all of the marketing studies
described earlier, the participants were given actual food products
or solutions to taste/evaluate, rather than just the names of those
products.
Other researchers have gone even further in terms of the match-
ing of more complex musical stimuli to both tastes and flavors
(see Spence, 2011b, for reviews). So, for example, Mesz et al.
(2011) have recently demonstrated that trained musicians generate
reliable and consistent musical representations when asked to
improvize in response to any one of the four basic tastes: The mu-
sicians' sour improvizations were generally high-pitched and
dissonant; Their sweet improvizations, by contrast, were softer,
slower, and more consonant; The musicians' bitter improviza-
tions were low-pitched and legato, while their salty improviza-
tions were staccato, and dense in wide musical intervals (that is,
they consisted of successive notes that had widely-differing
pitches). More importantly, nave listeners were able to decode
the tastes that the musicians were trying to communicate in their
musical compositions with a high degree of accuracy. It would
therefore appear as though certain styles of musical improvization,
and not just the auditory qualities of specific musical notes, can be
used to reliably connote the various basic tastes in the minds of
consumers (see also Crisinel, Cosser, King, Jones, Petrie, &
Spence, 2012). Can the same be done for flavors?
In an, as-yet unpublished, piece of industry-funded research
(the research in question being funded by Symrise), Kai Bronner
and his colleagues in Germany demonstrated that people match
different musical parameters, or qualities, to flavors (citrus and va-
nilla; see Bronner, submitted for publication; Bronner et al., 2008).
Citrus was associated with music that had a more syncopated
rhythm and a brighter and sharper timbre. By contrast, vanilla
was mapped onto music that was rather slow (adagio), and tended
to have a soft, dull timbre (see also Spence, 2011b). The same re-
sults were observed no matter whether these two flavors were ac-
tually presented to participants or just imagined by them. It is,
though, perhaps worth noting at this point that sourness is such a
central attribute of many citrus flavors that it is unclear whether
it might not have been the acidic taste associated with citrus that
was driving these effects, rather than the flavor of citrus itself.
Are bitter tastes low- or high-pitched?
The attentive reader should by now have spotted that there is
an apparent contradiction in the results of the various studies of
sound symbolism that have been reported thus far. On the one
hand, the majority of the studies reviewed just now support the
existence of a crossmodal correspondence between bitterness
and lower-pitch (e.g., Crisinel & Spence, 2010a; Crisinel et al.,
2012; Mesz et al., 2011; Simner et al., 2010). However, earlier
on it was reported that words containing a higher-frequency fron-
tal vowel sound led people to expect that a lemonade would be
bitter rather than names that contained a lower-pitched back
vowel sound instead (Klink, 2000). As yet, there is no clear ex-
planation for this discrepancy. It is, though, perhaps worth noting
that people often confuse sour and bitter tastes (e.g.,
O'Mahony, Goldenberg, Stedmon, & Alford, 1979). What
is more, another prominent attribute of many lemonades is their
sourness. Now all of the studies reported thus far in this review
have shown that sourness is associated with higher-pitched
sounds. Hence, I would argue that it is at least conceivable that
Klink's somewhat unusual finding (when compared to the results
of all subsequent studies) may reflect the fact that what his partic-
ipants were responding to when imagining the taste of lemonade
was its sourness, and not its bitterness.
What is more, according to at least two putative accounts of the
origin of the sound symbolic relationship between basic tastes and
speech sounds, bitterness should be associated with lower-pitched
(rather than higher-pitched) speech sounds. One of these accounts
is based on the literature on our affective behavioral responses to
basic tastants. It turns out that newborn humans, monkeys, and
even rats all show the same kind of stereotypical oro-facial hedon-
ic responses: Lip protrusion in response to bitter tastants, lip-
smacking (and licking) in response to sweetness (see Fig. 1).
The tongue protrudes upward in response to pleasant tastes and
downward in response to aversive tastes (e.g., Berridge, 2000;
Steiner et al., 2001). Sour and salty tastes have also been shown
to give rise to idiosyncratic, albeit somewhat less distinctive, oro-
facial gestures. One suggestion here, then, is that the sound that is
made while air is exhaled when either of these seemingly-innate
orofacial responses is adopted would likely have a different funda-
mental frequency. Consequently, one might expect that bitter
tastes would soon come to be associated with lower-pitched
sounds whereas sweet tastes would be associated with sounds hav-
ing a somewhat higher frequency instead. That is, there might be
good scientific grounds for expecting there to be a particularly ro-
bust sound symbolic correspondence between front-back vowel
sounds and foods and beverages varying on the bitter-sweet con-
tinuum (Ngo et al., 2011; cf. Fnagy, 1963).
Note, though, that the oro-facial affective account of why
lower-pitched sounds (especially speech sounds) should be
matched with bitter tastes is not the only one. It could equally
well be argued here that what participants are doing when they as-
sociate higher-pitched sounds with sweet tastes and lower-
pitched sounds with bitter tastes is simply matching them in
terms of their hedonic valence (see Spence, 2011c; though see
also Crisinel & Spence, in press). Both sweet tastes and higher
pitched tones are typically judged as being more pleasant than bit-
ter tastes and low-pitched tones (there is though, of course, likely
to be some upper level/concentration beyond which this claim no
longer holds true, that is, when the sweetness becomes sickly).
What is more, this appears to be true from a very early age in
human development (see Raymond, 2000). However, the key
point to note here is that both of the accounts of the origins of
sound symbolism just mentioned predict that bitter tastes should
be mapped onto lower-pitched tastes, and not onto higher-pitched
sounds, as was reported by Klink (2000).
Capitalizing on the crossmodal correspondences between
tastes/flavors and speech sounds
Following on from these studies, research at the Crossmodal
Research Laboratory here in Oxford has now demonstrated that
 C. Spence / Journal of Consumer Psychology 22 (2012) 3754
Fig. 1. Hedonic and aversive affective orofacial responses to sweet (upper row) and bitter (lower row) tastants in three different species rat, primate, and human.
Note the homologous tongue protrusion in response to a liked taste and the gaping response following the presentation of a disliked bitter taste.
Figure reprinted from Pecia & Smith, 2010, Fig. 1, with permission.
there are products out there in the marketplace where, at least
according to the rules of sound symbolism, the phonetic features
of the brand name are actually inappropriate. Ngo et al. (2011),
for example, recently showed how at least one currently-available
brand of chocolate, named Koko (from Cadbury), may set-up the
wrong taste expectations in people's minds. The participants in
this laboratory-based study matched the repeated plosive sound
(e.g., k) in the nonsense words koko or tuki with a food
that was bitter (e.g., high in cocoa), whereas it turns out that
this product, a milk chocolate truffle, isn't especially bitter. It
will be interesting to see, then, in the coming years, whether the
general success of brand names beginning with the k sound
(e.g., Schloss, 1981; Vanden Bergh, 1990; Vanden Bergh et al.,
1987; see also Abel & Glinert, 2008) will provide enough of an
advantage for the Koko brand to overcome the incongruency
in terms of the product's sensory attributes set-up by the repeated
plosive sound in the brand name.
It is, of course, important to remember here that the success
of a brand name may depend on a number of different factors.
Brand names that are more attention-capturing, memorable,
and/or easier to process are more likely to be successful (e.g.,
Alter & Oppenheimer, 2006; Erlich, 1995; Ewald & Moskowitz,
2007; Keller et al., 1998; LaBroo et al., 2008; Lowrey et al.,
2003; Robertson, 1989; Vanden Bergh et al., 1987). Many
brand names also convey some kind of semantic information,
or claim, regarding a product's functionality and/or effective-
ness (Kohli & LaBahn, 1995). Relevant here then is research
from Klink (2001) showing that sound symbolism can be
43
combined with semantic content in order to generate brand
names that are both better liked and better positioned (see
also McNeil, 2003; though see also Pinker, 2007, pp. 303
304). Finally, certain speech sounds may succeed in a brand
name simply because they are distinctive from those that have
gone before. Such sonic distinctiveness may also help a brand
to differentiate itself from the competition (see Abel & Glinert,
2008). Thus, the research reviewed here documenting the po-
tential use of sound symbolism in product naming should be
seen as just one part of an overall effective brand naming
strategy.
Shape symbolism in the marketplace
Having highlighted the existence of a number of robust cross-
modal correspondences between sounds and tastesflavors, I
now want to move on to look at another form of crossmodal corre-
spondence that should be of interest to marketers, namely that
between shape (or angularity) and tastes, flavors, and the
oral-somatosensory attributes of foods and beverages. Spence
and Gallace (2011) have demonstrated that people associate
the oral-somatosensory carbonation (in a sample of sparkling
water) with more angular shapes, while associating still water
with more rounded shapes instead (Chandrashekar et al.,
2009). Meanwhile, Deroy and Valentin (2011) have recently
demonstrated a crossmodal correspondence between three dif-
ferent kinds of beer and various 2D and 3D shapes (the partic-
ipants were given a total of 34 shapes to choose from).
44 C. Spence / Journal of Consumer Psychology 22 (2012) 3754

In another conceptually-similar experiment, Ngo et al. (2011)

highlighted the existence of a crossmodal correspondence be-
tween the angularity of visually-presented shapes and the bitter-
ness of chocolate. The participants in this study were given three
samples of commercially-produced chocolate to taste that varied
in their cocoa content (30% milk chocolate, 70% dark chocolate,
and 90% dark chocolate). They had to taste each sample and
then place a mark at the appropriate point along an analog line
scale anchored at one end by a rounded shape and at the other
end by an angular shape (see Fig. 2A). The results revealed
that as the cocoa content in the chocolate samples went up,
so the participants tended to mark a point that was closer to
the angular-shaped end of the line (see Fig. 2B). They also
tended to map bitterness onto sharper-sounding words as well
(that is, onto words starting with a plosive sound, such as Tuki
and Takete as opposed to words like Maluma and Lula).
Note that these shape and sound symbolism effects were very ro-
bust, demonstrable in a paper-and-pencil test with each of 20 par-
ticipants only tasting each (of the three) chocolate sample once (see
also Ngo & Spence, 2011).

The consequences of manipulating crossmodal correspon-

dence for consumer perceptions

So far, everything that we have seen in this section of the review

supports the claim that people exhibit reliable crossmodal corre-
spondences between particular tastes and flavors and certain attri-
butes of auditory stimuli, be they pure tones, phonetic stimuli,
and/or the parameters of more complex musical expression. People
also exhibit robust crossmodal correspondences between abstract
shapes and the carbonation of beverages and the bitter taste of
cocoa in dark chocolate products. However, what many marketers
really want to know is whether presenting pairs of stimuli that cor-
respond crossmodally in terms of the matching of sounds or shapes
to tastes and/or flavors can actually result in people rating food and
drink items more favorably than if no such correspondence had
been presented, or worse still, if the stimuli that happen to be pre-
sented are crossmodally incongruent. The idea here is that sound
symbolism in brand naming and shape symbolism in labeling
and packaging design could eventually be used in order to set-up
the appropriate sensory expectations in the minds of consumers.
This approach is premised on the idea that people like food
and drink products more if they meet their expectations than if
they do not, that is, if they are surprised (see Peterson & Ross,
1972; Pinson, 1986; Piqueras-Fiszman & Spence, in press
a, b; though see also Garber et al., 2000). Food scientists have
shown that when a food or beverage item fails to meet our expec-
tations, we are likely to evaluate it, both immediately and for a
long time thereafter, more negatively than if our expectations
had been met (e.g., see Cardello, 1994; Deliza & MacFie, 1997;
Deliza et al., 2003; Schifferstein, 2001; Yeomans et al., 2008).
In fact, we may be especially sensitive to disconfirmed expectation
when it comes to food and drinks, since we actually take these
stimuli into our mouths, and hence need to avoid the risk of poi-
soning (see Koza et al., 2005; Piqueras-Fiszman & Spence,
in press b; Wheatley, 1973).
Fig. 2. A) The paper-and-pencil response scale used by participants in Ngo et al.'s
(2011) recent studies of shape and sound symbolism. The participants tasted three
samples of chocolate that varied in their cocoa content and placed a mark on the
corresponding point on the scales; B) The results show both sound and shape sym-
bolism effects with increasing bitterness (e.g., as the cocoa content increases in the
chocolate) being matched with more angular shapes and words starting with a
harder plosive sound (t in this case). The units on the Y-axis indicate the number
of cm along the 10 cm line scale, with 0 reflecting the center-point.
Figure adapted and reprinted from Ngo et al., 2011, Figs. 1 and 2, with permission.
To date, there has been far less research on this particular ques-
tion. However, the evidence that is available suggests that people's
responses to food/drink items are more favorable from both the
consumer's perspective and from that of the marketer when
crossmodally corresponding stimuli are presented (e.g., see Gal
et al., 2007; Holt-Hansen, 1968, 1976; Spence, 2011a, b; though
see also Crisinel et al., 2012).
Crossmodal correspondences modulate taste, aroma, and/or
flavor perception
As yet, there isn't a great deal of research on the question of
whether sound or shape symbolism can influence product percep-
tion, but what there is, is promising (see DeRosia, 2008). Take, for
example, early work by Holt-Hansen (1968, 1976). This research
provides anecdotal evidence that when the frequency of the tone
playing in the background matched the taste/flavor of the beer
that the participants were evaluating, they rated the beer-drinking
experience, and even the very taste of the beer itself, as more en-
joyable than when listening to a tone whose frequency did not
match the taste (though see Rudmin & Cappelli, 1983). That
said, the subjective reports of Holt-Hansen's participant's study
 C. Spence / Journal of Consumer Psychology 22 (2012) 3754
are sufficiently florid to make one wonder quite what was in the
beer bottles that they were sampling from (see especially Table
2, Holt-Hansen, 1976, p. 1026).
Another, rather more convincing, example here comes from
an as-yet unpublished study by Gal et al. (2007). They had par-
ticipants judge which of three simultaneously-presented (and
similarly-sized) shapes occupied the largest surface area. The
participants then tasted a piece of cheddar cheese. After having
evaluated three angular shapes, the participants rated the
cheese as tasting 7% sharper than if they had just evaluated
three rounded shapes instead. 4 While these results are most cer-
tainly promising, it is worth noting that Gal and his colleagues
had to test rather a large number of participants (N 200) in order
to obtain an effect that only just reached statistical significance
(p = .03). Furthermore, it is clearly unlikely that people, when
consuming a packaged food or drink item under more natural-
istic conditions, would necessarily pay anything like as much
attention to the shapes on the label as the participants did in
this study. That said, there are many consumers out there.
Hence, even a very subtle effect of shape symbolism on food
perception demonstrated in the laboratory could potentially be
important out in the marketplace.
Elsewhere, Seo et al. (2010) have reported an intriguing
study in which the participants had to say which of eight food
odors (guava, honey melon, mint, parmesan cheese, pepper,
truffle, vanilla, and viola) best matched each of 19 different ab-
stract shapes (or symbols), varying from more mounded to
more angular. Once again, a reliable crossmodal correspon-
dence was observed, this time between the odors and specific
abstract shapes. In the second part of their study, Seo and col-
leagues went on to demonstrate significant differences in odor
pleasantness and intensity ratings for two of the odors (those
smelling of violet and of parmesan cheese) when presented to-
gether with an abstract visual shape that was congruent than
when they were presented with an incongruent shape, or else
with no visual stimulus at all (see Fig. 3). In particular, the
odor of violet was rated as more intense and more pleasant
while the parmesan odor was rated as more unpleasant (see
also Crisinel & Spence, in press a, 2011).
The brain responses of participants in Seo et al.'s (2010) study
were also measured using event-related potentials (ERPs). This
technique allowed the researchers to demonstrate that this partic-
ular crossmodal correspondence between abstract visual shapes
and odors was influencing their participants' brain responses. In
particular, the early N1 component had both a higher amplitude
and a shorter latency on congruent as compared to incongruent
trials. These crossmodal interactions occurred within a matter of
a few hundred milliseconds of stimulus onset. As such, Seo et
al.'s results can be taken to suggest that the manipulation of the
crossmodal correspondence between the abstract visual shape
and the odor (contrasting matching, or congruent, with non-
matching, or incongruent) had a genuinely perceptual effect on
4
Results such as these clearly suggest that there is some underlying truth to
the metaphoric use of language captured in phrases such as a sharp cheese
(e.g., Marks, 1991; Spence et al., submitted for publication; Williams, 1976).
45
Fig. 3. Three different types of visual stimuli used in Seo et al.'s (2010) study of
crossmodal correspondences between food aromas and shape. The middle sym-
bol was congruent with the odor of phenylethanol (PEA), while the abstract
symbol on the right was congruent with the odor of 1-butanol. These com-
pounds smell of violet and parmesan cheese, respectively.
This figure is reprinted from Seo et al., 2010, Fig. 2, with permission.
participants' experience of the odor, and not just on their subse-
quent ratings of that experience.
Finally, in a very recent study, Crisinel et al. (2012) system-
atically altered the taste of a bittersweet cinder toffee simply by
changing the crossmodal congruency (or correspondence) of
the auditory soundtrack that happened to be presented over
headphones at the same time as people were eating this partic-
ular sweet. The participants in this study rated the bitter taste in
the food as being more prominent when a lower-pitched sound-
scape was presented and the sweeter taste was rated as more
prominent when a high-pitched soundscape was played over
the headphones instead. Importantly, the soundscapes used in
this study were based on the findings of Crisinel and Spence's
(2010b) psychophysical research (described earlier).
Taken together, the results reported in this section of the review
support the view that it may be possible to enhance a consumer's
perception of a particular food or drink item by ensuring that any
shape information displayed on the product packaging is as con-
gruent as possible with the taste, flavor, and/or oral-somatosensory
attributes of the food or drink product contained within. At this
point, those familiar with the history of marketing may be
reminded of the seminal early work of Louis Cheskin (1957,
1972); and recently repopularized by writers such as Malcolm
Gladwell, 2005, pp. 160161; see also Hine, 1995, pp. 210
213. According to Cheskin, people reported liking products such
as women's skin cream more (at least at the time that the study
was conducted) when those products were presented in packaging
on which circles were visible rather than on packaging covered
with angular triangles instead. One might also wonder whether
the prominent red circle that appears in the middle of 7-Up logo
was also based on one of Cheskin's suggestions (he certainly
looked at the effects of changing the overall color scheme on the
7-Up can and its effects on flavor perception). There is, after all,
apparently a crossmodal correspondence between sweetness and
roundness (see Dichter, 1971).
It is, however, important to note that the sensation transfer-
ence effects reported by Cheskin (1957, 1972) were of a very
general nature. Indeed, it would be too easy to come away
from his early research believing that almost regardless of the
product category involved (e.g., food or home-and-personal-
46 C. Spence / Journal of Consumer Psychology 22 (2012) 3754

Table 1
Summary of the various different crossmodal correspondences between the taste, flavor, and oral-somatosensory attributes of foods and beverages and various
parameters of auditory and visual stimuli that have been documented to date. The numerous empty cells in this table highlight some of the many crossmodal
correspondences yet to be investigated. (Hypothesized correspondences for which there is currently little, contradictory, or else an absence of, empirical evidence
are followed by a questionmark.).
Modality Attribute Sound Tone-pitch Instrument Musical Shape Color
symbolism symbolismc symbolismd parameterse symbolismf symbolismg
Vowelsa Consonantsb
Oral-somatosensation
Carbonation Front Plosives Angular Red?
Creamy, smooth, Back Rounded
rich texture
Thickness Back Plosives?
Crunchy/Crispy Plosives, voiced Angular
Taste
Bitterness Front?/Back? Plosives? Low-pitch Brass Legato Angular Green?
Sweetness Front Fricatives? High-pitch Piano Softer, slower, and Rounded Red
consonant
Sourness (acidity) Voiceless? High-pitch Dissonant and fast Angular Yellow
Saltiness Staccato, and dense White
in wide musical intervals
Umami (savory) Low-pitch
Flavor
Citrus Syncopated rhythm, Angular
and bright, sharp timbre
Vanilla Piano, woodwind Slow (adagio), and soft,
dull timbre
Fruit High-pitch Piano, woodwind
a,b Gallace et al. (2011); Klink (2000); Ngo et al. (2011); Spence and Gallace (2011); Yorkston and Menon (2004).
c,d Belkin et al. (1997); Crisinel and Spence (2009, 2010a, b, in press, 2011, submitted for publication); Holt-Hansen (1968, 1976); Mesz et al. (2011); Rudmin
and Cappelli (1983); Simner et al. (2010).
e Bronner (submitted for publication); Bronner et al. (2008); Mesz et al. (2011).
f Deroy and Valentin (2011); Dichter (1971); Gal et al. (2007); Lyman (1989); Ngo et al. (2011); Spence and Gallace (2011); Spence et al.
g Maga (1974); O'Mahony (1983); though see also Spence et al. (2010).

care, HPC), circles are better than more angular forms on pack-
aging in terms of positively influencing people's responses to
products (cf. Dazkir & Read, in press). Speaking more general-
ly, people appear to prefer rounded over angular forms (Bar &
Neta, 2006; see also Carbon, 2010). However, the results de-
scribed here support the view that such a positive effect of
rounded forms might be much more product or attribute specif-
ic than that. In particular, when it comes to food and beverage
items, it would appear as though bitter, carbonated, sour, and
crunchy food and beverage items are actually better matched
with more angular shapes on the packaging, while sweeter and
creamier-tasting food and drink items are better-matched with
more rounded forms instead (see Table 1). Angularity also
seems to be a feature of at least certain cigarette packets
think of the pyramid on the Camel packet (Day, 1985) and the an-
gular contrast between red and white that make the Marlboro
brand so distinctive.
Shape symbolism: labeling
One direct prediction from Spence and Gallace's (2011) re-
sults (described earlier) is that the labeling on the containers for
carbonated beverages, such as sparkling water, should be more
likely to incorporate angular imagery than the containers used
for still water. A casual inspection of the supermarket shelf
does indeed suggest that this may, in fact, be the case. Both San
Pellegrino and Apollinaris, for example, contain very prominent
angular shapes on their labels/packaging (see Fig. 4). 5 The
shape symbolism approach may also extend to other carbonated
beverages, such as beer. In this regard, it is interesting to note
that Heineken also uses a prominent red star in their logo, consis-
tent with the carbonation of the larger products they purvey. 6
Given the prominent use of angular shapes on the front labels
(not to mention the cap of the San Pellegrino bottle), it would be
5
Even those brands that do not incorporate angular shapes sometimes utilize
angular imagery think of the thistle that adorns the front of the sparkling
mineral water bottle from Highland Spring. Meanwhile, it should be noted the
still water from the manufacturer of San Pellegrino, Acqua Panna, contains no
such angular imagery on the packaging. Note that the red star on the Heineken
logo actually dates back to the red star that was a traditional Dutch brewing
symbol (see The Dutch touch, 2011).
6
Color symbolism. Is it mere coincidence, one might ask, that the angular
shapes on the packaging of San Pellegrino, Appolinaris, Saskia (carbonated wa-
ter), and Heineken all happen to be red? Surely not. One possibility here is that
there may also be a crossmodal correspondence between the color red and car-
bonation (or some other product attribute). Some years ago, O'Mahony (1983)
reported that people associate red with sweetness rather than with any of the
other primary tastes (see Table 1). Although interesting, a full discussion of
the topic of color symbolism in food and drink packaging/logo design falls be-
yond the scope of the present article (see Garber et al., 2008; Maga, 1974; Ngo
et al., submitted for publication; Piqueras-Fiszman & Spence, in press a;
Spence, 2010; Spence et al., 2010; Wheatley, 1973).
 C. Spence / Journal of Consumer Psychology 22 (2012) 3754
Fig. 4. Several brands of mineral water already use angular shapes on their
packaging. Take, for example, the San Pellegrino and Apollinaris bottles
shown here. The San Pellegrino bottle has a total of four red stars displayed
on the packaging, three on the two front labels and one on the screw-cap.
Here it is argued that angular shapes are more common on sparkling than on
still mineral water bottles.
easy to imagine that the graphic designers who worked this iconic
example of product labeling/packaging must intuitively have pick-
ed-up on the existence of a crossmodal correspondence between
angularity and carbonation (some decades before Khler, 1929,
first introduced the notion of shape symbolism to the field of Ex-
perimental Psychology). 7 For, according to the San Pellegrino
website, the stars have been an integral part of the label since at
least as far back as 1907 (see Spence & Gallace, 2011). That
said, it is difficult to determine causality here. It could equally
well be argued that those food and drink products whose pack-
aging, serendipitously or otherwise, happens to incorporate ab-
stract imagery that sets-up the appropriate taste/flavor/oral-
somatosensory expectations in the minds of consumers will
be more likely to succeed in the marketplace, and hence still
be around many years after their introduction.
By contrast, crossmodal incongruency in branding, packag-
ing, and/or labeling design should be much less likely to succeed
(e.g., see Ngo et al., 2011; Spence & Piqueras-Fiszman, in press;
Schifferstein & Spence, 2008). As such, incongruency is far more
likely to disappear from the shelves soon after its introduction into
the marketplace (though see also Piqueras-Fiszman & Spence, in
press b). Counterevidence to the argument outlined here would
then come from a product that has been in the marketplace for
many years but where the shape, or for that matter sound, symbol-
ism is inappropriate (or incongruent) with the product's sensory
qualities (i.e., with its taste, aroma, flavor, or other oral-somato-
sensory attributes).
Coffee would seem to be another category in which one might
expect to see shape-taste symbolism in action. Bitterness, what is
euphemistically called strength on most packets, is a prominent
part of the coffee drinking experience (e.g., Calvio et al., 1996;
Geel et al., 2005). While I haven't yet had the chance to perform
a systematic analysis of the use of shape symbolism in coffee
labeling/packaging design, one might already speculate that
the rounded shape of the Starbucks logo surreptitiously sug-
gests to consumers that their product offering will not be too
7
And a century before Spence and Gallace (2011) provided the rst empirical
evidence to demonstrate the existence of this crossmodal correspondence.
47
bitter (see also Zhang et al., 2006). While the Costa coffee
chain's logo shows coffee beans, many of the hot beverages
(e.g., the cappuccino) served in-store currently are topped with
cocoa powder that has been sprinkled in the shape of a star. Per-
haps this all-too-visible shape sets up an expectation about the
taste of what lies below the frothy milk topping.
Given the frequency with which wine writers use descriptors
such as sharp or rounded when describing their impressions
of the taste of wine (e.g., Lehrer, 2009, pp. 140141; Peynaud,
1987, pp. 168171), it would seem only natural that the shape
symbolism approach could also profitably be used to aid in the de-
sign of wine labels. Round labels for rounded wines, more angu-
lar labels for sharper, more acidic, wines. 8 However, here, it is
important to note that some wines, unlike many other food and
beverage products, are designed for long-term storage in the bot-
tle. What is more, for many such quality wines, the sensory attri-
butes actually change quite dramatically as they age (e.g., as the
tannins soften in a young red wine, say). Hence, unless a wine pro-
ducer can predict the likely taste/flavor qualities at the time of con-
sumption, it may be hard for them to get the shape symbolism on
the wine label right.
The shape symbolism approach to marketing outlined here
might be appropriate, then, for the producers of wines, such
as Beaujolais, that are designed to be drunk young. It might
also be more appropriate for those mass-marketed blended
wines (or packaged coffees) where the producers strive for a
consistent flavor profile. In the case of wine, this will usually
be one that is sweet, and hence congruent with a more rounded
label/imagery on the label. Fortunately, the technology for wine
labels has progressed to such an extent in recent years that the in-
troduction of innovative label designs is now much cheaper, and
hence more practical, than ever before (e.g., see Kidd, 1999, p.
82). Hence, I would argue that the wine producers, or at the
very least the wine marketers, are now in a position to capitalize
on the emerging science of shape symbolism together with the in-
novations in packaging technology in order to allow for a more
strategic use of shape symbolism in the marketplace (see Fig. 5).
From the evidence reviewed here, it would appear that research
on the topic of shape symbolism can provide useful insights with
regard to the most appropriate shapes for any abstract imagery
presented on the labels of food and drink packaging, not to men-
tion the very shape of labels themselves. The shape symbolism ap-
proach is likely to be particularly effective for those mass-
marketed food and beverage products whose flavor profile at the
time of consumption can be safely predicted. Once again, though,
it must be remembered that shape symbolism is only one small
part of successful label design. Product images (Cheskin, 1972;
Van Ittersum et al., 2003), descriptive labels (Charters et al.,
1999), and bold attention-capturing colors (Garber et al., 2008)
undoubtedly also play an important role as well.
8
Here, it is important to note that there may also be gender differences in the
appeal of different label shapes. So, for example, many years ago, Louis Che-
skin worked on a project with Fleishmann's Gin in which the corners of the la-
bel were rounded specically because it was believed that the change would be
more appealing to women (who, at the time this change was made, accounted
for almost 40% of shoppers at the liquor store; see http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Louis_Cheskin downloaded on 07/05/2011).
48 C. Spence / Journal of Consumer Psychology 22 (2012) 3754

Tetra
prisma Edge Tetratop gemina
pak
Centred spout

Beverage
carton
packs

Tetra brik Tetra Gable top Elopak Diamond SIG

Combi
combifit
& SIG &
Elopak
(top panel+ big bloc
combi
bloc cap);Curve
(corner)

Fig. 6. Samples of innovative packaging shapes currently available in the mar-

ketplace. [Picture courtesy of Elopack].

Fig. 5. Would you expect a wine with such an angular label to have a sharp While it might, at first, seem far-fetched to suggest that com-
(acidic/sour) or more rounded taste? The last few years have seen label de- panies would strategically change the shape of their product
signers increasingly experimenting with a wide variety of novel shapes and pat- packaging in order to modify the response of their consumers,
terns on wine bottles. [Picture copyright Betina Piqueras-Fisman]. the evidence now available shows that this may be precisely
what they should be doing. Take, for example, a recent study
Shape symbolism: packaging form by Becker et al. (2011). They have taken a first step in terms
of demonstrating the impact of changes in packaging shape
Finally, as well as manipulating the abstract shapes dis- (specifically changes in angularity) on the perception of the
played on the labels and packaging, not to mention the very foodstuff contained within (see also Ares & Deliza, 2010;
shapes of the labels themselves (see Cutler, 2006), many food Overbeeke & Peters, 1991). Becker et al. conducted a study
companies are now starting to think about modifying the very in which the participants had to evaluate a yogurt presented in
shape of the packaging in which their products are presented a range of different packaging formats (see Fig. 7). The product
on the supermarket shelves. While some marketers have sug- ratings given by those participants who were sensitive to de-
gested that this could be thought of as a form of tactile branding sign were shown to be influenced by changing the shape, spe-
(Lindstrom, 2005), others have argued that it may be more ap- cifically shape curvature, of the packaging in which it was
propriate to think of it as amodal branding instead (see Spence presented (though see also Piqueras-Fiszman et al., 2011). In
& Gallace, 2011). The term amodal here refers to the fact that particular, the taste of the yogurt was rated as being more
the shape of the packaging can actually be perceived by several
senses, and not just by touch. Indeed, the shape of a package
will most likely be seen long before it is felt. Crucially, recent
developments in packaging technology also mean that it has be-
come much cheaper for companies to alter the shape of their
packaging than ever before. Just take the tetrapak/brik carton
format: Unsurprisingly, the last few years have seen an explo-
sion of novel packaging shapes launched into the marketplace
(Anon., 2010; see Fig. 6, for some innovative examples). The
question therefore facing many companies/packaging manufac-
turers (e.g., Norway's Elopak or Faraday Packaging in the UK)
is precisely which packaging shape is most appropriate for
which type of product (cf. Durgee, 2003)?
At a first approximation, the research outlined here could be
taken to suggest that milk products and creamy yogurts should
probably be presented in more rounded packaging, whereas
fruit juices, and other products with a more sharp, acidic, and/or
Fig. 7. The yogurt containers (varying in angularity) that were displayed on the
bitter taste should be presented in more angular packaging in- computer monitor before the participants in Becker et al.'s (2011) study had to
stead. Grapefruit juice, for example, being both acidic and bitter, evaluate a sample of yogurt served from an aluminum sampling dish.
would likely benefit from being sold in more angular packaging. Figure reprinted from Becker et al., 2011, Fig. 2, with permission.
 C. Spence / Journal of Consumer Psychology 22 (2012) 3754
intense after the participants had viewed an angular, rather than
more rounded, package.
In terms of further addressing the way in which individual dif-
ferences might affect people's sensitivity to packaging, it could
also be worth investigating those who score higher on The
need for touch scale (see Peck & Childers, 2003). One obvious
prediction here being that such individuals would be expected
to be differentially affected by any changes in packaging shape
as compared to those consumers who score lower on this scale
(see Krishna & Morrin, 2008; Spence & Gallace, 2011).
Once again, the idea that features of a product's packaging can
be used to modulate that consumer expectations isn't altogether
new (e.g., Cheskin, 1957). However, what is new, at least as far
as I am aware, is that we now have a better understanding of at
least some of the scientific principles underlying the crossmodal
correspondences that have been documented between shapes,
or angularity (no matter whether that angularity is seen
and/or felt), and taste/flavor perception. Of course, it is impor-
tant to note that the shape symbolic associations outlined here
likely work in tandem with any semiotic/semantic associations
that specific packaging shapes/formats may have picked-up
over the years that they have been in the marketplace. Think
here only of the association that many consumers hold between
round (as opposed to rectangular) plastic tubs and quality in ice
cream (Cheskin, 1957; Spence, 2007). Or, for UK consumers,
the association between the regular tetrapak format and freshness,
that has been capitalized on so successfully by The New Covent
Garden Soup Co. (see Fig. 8). It seems unlikely that the subtle ef-
fects of shape symbolism in food and beverage packaging will be
capable of overriding such semantic/semiotic effects (see Spence
& Piqueras-Fiszman, in press). Nevertheless, they can perhaps
operate effectively in tandem with them.
Finally, here, in the coming years we may even see an in-
creased consideration of the shape of the food product itself.
Chances are if you think of a piece of cheddar cheese, like
those sold in the supermarket, then you will bring a rectangular
block to mind. Is it any coincidence one might ask that the
sharp edges of the cheese correspond crossmodally to the sharp
taste (or flavor) that such cheeses often have. Perhaps, then,
milder cheeses should come in a more rounded form. A similar
Fig. 8. The New Covent Garden Food Co. soup package. This tetrapak captures
the associations with milk of freshness (attributable to the fact that fresh milk
was, for many years, sold in the same container in the UK). Shape symbolism
in packaging design is unlikely to override such semantic associations (or
image molds, see Stern, 1981) that consumers hold with a particular packaging
format, especially when they are well entrenched.
Figure reprinted from Spence & Gallace, 2011, Fig. 2, with permission.
49
form of shape symbolism could also be used in the chocolate
market. Already individual chocolate pieces for children are
sold in both rounded (e.g., Cadbury Dairy Milk Buttons) and
star-shaped forms (e.g., Milky Way Magic Stars). The research
outlined here clearly suggests that the rounded shape is more ap-
propriate for milk chocolate. Indeed, anecdotally I have heard
from several individuals who report finding the angular shape
of the Magic Stars to be wrong (i.e., incongruent). Recent tech-
nological innovations in 3-D chocolate printing mean that things
could soon go much further in terms of delivering innovatively-
shaped chocolates to the marketplace (see Anon., submitted for
publication; Moskvitch, 2011).
Does the use of sound/shape symbolism constitute a form of
implicit marketing?
Having demonstrated the potential role that sound/shape sym-
bolism can play in terms of modifying people's perception of,
and response to, of a variety of different food and beverage
items, the final question to consider here is whether or not this ap-
proach to setting consumer expectations should be considered as
operating at an implicit (or functionally subconscious) level. So,
for instance, everyone will see the red stars when they pour them-
selves a glass of water from a San Pellegrino bottle. That said, I
would argue that sound/shape symbolism can be considered as
typically operating at an implicit or functionally subconscious
level. For although consumers can see, hear, and/or feel (in the
case of packaging shape) the inducing stimulus, they are typically
unaware both of its meaning in terms of crossmodally setting
their product expectations, and its likely influence on their per-
ception of the product contained within (see Becker et al., 2011;
Gal et al., 2007; Holt-Hansen, 1976; Piqueras-Fiszman et al.,
2011; Spence, 2011b; Yorkston & Menon, 2004). A similar
claim for the implicit nature of crossmodal correspondence ef-
fects has been made in the case of sound symbolism in brand
naming (see McNeil, 2003). That said, it remains an open ques-
tion what may happen to consumer perceptions of a brand,
when they become aware of the forethought that has gone into
establishing the right sensory expectations.
Conclusions
Although research on the topic of sound and shape symbolism
has a long history in the fields of experimental psychology and lin-
guistics, it is only in the last decade or so that researchers have re-
ally started to realize the potential relevance of this area of study
for the fields of product naming, branding, and packaging design.
The latest findings from this newly-revitalized field of research
(see Robson, 2011) now demonstrate that the sounds present in
the brand name, the abstract imagery on a product's packaging,
or even the shape of the label or packaging itself, can be used to
set-up sub-conscious expectations in the minds of consumers.
These expectations, which concern the likely sensory attributes
of food and beverage items will then influence, albeit subtly,
their perception of, and hence their liking for, a particular product.
By making sure that the expectation about the likely taste, smell,
and flavor of food and beverage products is met, one can
50 C. Spence / Journal of Consumer Psychology 22 (2012) 3754
significantly increase the likelihood that consumers will enjoy
those products more (Cardello, 1994; Pinson, 1986; Schifferstein,
2001; Yeomans et al., 2008; though see also Piqueras-Fiszman &
Spence, in press b). Importantly, this form of expectation setting
appears to operate at an implicit level. The ultimate aim here,
then, is to capitalize on our growing understanding of the phenom-
ena of sound and shape symbolism in order to more appropriately
guide consumer expectations in the marketplace.
To recap, the sound/shape-taste/flavor/oral-somatosensory
correspondences that have been documented to date include the
finding that sourness, bitterness, crunchiness, and carbonation,
correspond crossmodally with angular shapes and sharper/harder
plosive stop consonants as well as with higher-pitched frontal
vowels. By contrast, sweet, still, and creamy food and beverage
products appear to share a crossmodal correspondence with
rounder shapes and speech sounds, as well as with back vowels.
Table 1 provides a summary of many of the sound, shape, and
color symbolism effects relevant to the taste and flavor of food
and drink items that have been documented to date.
Of course, rather than using the sound/shape symbolism ap-
proach to correctly predict the sensory experience of a food or
beverage etc., there will always be some temptation to use
sound/shape symbolism in order to set-up expectations that
are actually higher (better) than what is actually being delivered
by a product. However, while there may certainly be some pos-
sibility to enhance the consumer experience in this way (cf.
Woods et al., 2011), one has to be very careful not to go too
far, and give rise to disconfirmed expectations (Schifferstein,
2001). Researchers have now shown that such disconfirmed ex-
pectation, when the product experience does not meet the con-
sumer's product expectation, can give rise to long-lasting
negative consequences for product perception and consumption
(Yeomans et al., 2008; though see also Piqueras-Fiszman &
Spence, in press a,b).
At this point, however, one might reasonably ask whether
there is really any need to use (or benefit associated with)
such subtle sound/shape symbolism manipulations in the mar-
ketplace. Why should one use sound/shape symbolism when
one can place actual product images on the packaging and/or
choose brand names with semantic meaning, and or which are es-
pecially attention-capturing, memorable, and/or which consumers
find it easy to process perceptually (e.g., Alter & Oppenheimer,
2006; Keller et al., 1998; LaBroo et al., 2008; Nilsen, 1979;
Prez Hernndez, in press; Van Ittersum et al., 2003; Vanden
Bergh et al., 1987)? Well, in practice, and as I have tried to
make clear throughout this review, sound and shape symbolism
should be considered as but one element in a successful brand
naming, and product and packaging design strategy. The claim
here is certainly not that sound/shape symbolism can be used to re-
place all these other approaches, but that by combining this ap-
proach with other effective strategies, the likelihood of a food or
beverage brand's success in the marketplace will be increased
(e.g., Klink, 2001; Vanden Bergh et al., 1987).
That said, it is also important to note that the sound/shape sym-
bolism approach may have a number of unique advantages rela-
tive to other more explicit/semantic forms of labeling/branding.
First, many shape/sound symbolism effects appear to be universal.
That is, they are shared by people over the world. What this means
in practice is that certain examples of shape/sound symbolism
should work particularly well in the global marketplace. Al-
though the relevant research has yet to be conducted, the impli-
cation of previous studies of sound and shape symbolism is
that they tend to be shared cross-culturally (e.g., Davis, 1961;
Diffloth, 1994; Hinton et al., 1994). Whether the same is true
for the crossmodal correspondence between sounds, shapes
and the taste and flavor of food and beverage items will obvi-
ously be an important question for future research. 9 It should
be noted here that such universality is not a property of brand
names that contain semantic content (Klink, 2003; see also
Lowenthal, 1981). Indeed, one important limitation with se-
mantically meaningful brand names is precisely that they
may only work in those markets were the potential customers
happen to speak the right language.
Second, sound/shape symbolism may also have the advantage
over other more semantic/explicit forms of packaging/branding in
that it operates at an implicit (or functionally nonconscious) level
(McNeil, 2003), not to mention the fact that its occurrence appears
to be both automatic and effortless (Yorkston & Menon, 2004).
What this means in practice is that consumers will likely not
show any conscious rejection, or evaluation, of the information
that is being provided to them (via the sound/shape symbolism
route). This may not be such an issue for those product attributes
that consumers value positively, such as carbonation in a beverage
or bitterness (in coffee), say. However, it may be much more rel-
evant when it comes to product attributes that consumers desire,
but which at the same time happen to be associated with less pos-
itive sensory qualities. Take, for example, the case of low-fat
foods. Many consumers expect that such foods will be associated
with a lower quality taste (sensory/hedonic experience). Indeed,
several studies have now shown that explicitly labeling a food
as low-fat or healthy often has a negative consequence on con-
sumers' product evaluation, no matter what the taste (e.g.,
Wansink et al., 2004; see also Does the label change the
taste?, 1962; Solheim, 1992; Wansink & Park, 2002). Should
there be some crossmodal correspondence between oral fat (or
texture) and sound/shape, then it may be possible to convey the
message to consumers that a food is low in fat (or healthy) in a
manner that is functionally subliminal (or implicit). In turn, the
hope would be that by adopting this approach, it doesn't engage
a consumer's conscious (and in this case negative) evaluation in
quite the same way that an explicit low-fat (or healthy) label does.
Finally, the fact that many sound/shape symbolism effects ap-
pear to be present from very soon after birth (i.e., prior to the de-
velopment of language; e.g., Maurer, Pathman, & Mondloch,
2006; Walker et al., 2010; see also Reardon & Bushnell, 1988)
means that this approach to setting expectations could perhaps
be particularly effective when it comes to food and beverage
items that are targeted at infants. Even in adults, brand names
that utilize the appropriate sound and shape symbolism are likely
to be learned more rapidly and remembered for longer (Kantartzis,
Imai, & Kita, 2011; Kovic, Plunkett, & Westermann, 2009;
9
In fact, we are currently conducting research in Namibia to address this very
question (see Bremner, Davidoff, & Spence, submitted for publication).
 C. Spence / Journal of Consumer Psychology 22 (2012) 3754
Robson, 2011). At this point, one can only speculate as to whether
one's household pets also show shape and/or sound symbolism
effects.
In conclusion, the sound and shape symbolism approach to set-
ting and modifying consumer expectations for food and drink
products would appear to offer an effective means for marketers
to implicitly (or subconsciously) guide their potential consumers'
expectations about the likely taste, aroma, flavor, and/or oral-
somatosensory attributes of the products that they market. To the
extent that the marketers are successful in achieving this goal, con-
sumers are likely to enjoy their product offerings more. While the
gaps shown in Table 1 clearly highlight the fact that more research
is needed, I would argue that there are already enough well-
supported insights/findings that are already actionable. While
some marketers may have serendipitously (or intuitively) stumbled
across certain of these phenomena over the years (e.g., Cheskin,
1957, 1972; Dichter, 1971; see Spence & Gallace, 2011), we
now have a much firmer scientific basis on which to base, limit, ex-
tend, and effectively utilize such findings.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Betina Piqueras-Fiszman, Anne-Sylvie Crisi-
nel, Jools Simner, Nancy Puccinelli, and Mary Ngo for many
helpful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript.
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