When a food or beverage brand name includes a number, consumers tend to expect the product to taste better and have a more complex flavor profile. Recent papers published in psychology and marketing It has been suggested that writing out numbers as words, especially words containing specific vowels, enhances this effect by subtly conveying richness and depth to the human brain.
Natalie Spielman and Diego Vega designed this study to investigate how the form and sound of numbers in brand names influence consumers’ taste judgments. The way a brand name sounds and looks plays a huge role in forming a first impression. Numbers are frequently used in brand names in the food industry, but the psychological impact of these numerical cues on actual taste expectations remains largely unknown.
“Having been deeply involved in wine, I noticed that many wine brands choose numbers to name their wines and wondered how that would affect consumer perception,” said Spielman, a marketing professor at NEOMA Business School. “We thought it would be interesting to investigate how consumers expect wine to taste based on the type of numbers used in the brand, especially since wine is an experiential product and is rarely tried before purchase. This research clearly applies to all food and beverages.”
Researchers have focused their research on processing fluency theory, which explains how the ease or difficulty of understanding information influences human preferences. Generally, people prefer things that are easy to process. However, in certain situations, a slight mental hurdle can make a product seem more elaborate and premium. This slight cognitive friction is known as disfluency.
Spielman and Vega proposed that the presence of numbers in brand names creates mild visual and cognitive complexity. Because reading a spelled word like “seven” requires slightly more mental effort than reading the number “7,” your brain can mistakenly attribute this slight difficulty to the complexity and layering of the product itself.
“The takeaway here is that when presented with a brand name that includes numerical cues, consumers may be more influenced than they realize,” Spielman said. “Numbers not only have a positive impact on taste perception, but they do so even more when numbers are written compared to when they are expressed in numbers. This occurs because not only numbers but also written numbers are more complex to read and thus indicate complexity.”
The authors also wanted to test phonetic symbolism, which refers to how certain sounds evoke physical sensations or abstract concepts. Specifically, the researchers thought that front vowel numbers and back vowel numbers might indicate different flavor expectations. Front vowels are sounds made with the tongue positioned forward in the mouth and often have a lightness or sharpness to them, as in words such as three and six.
Back vowels involve the action of pulling the tongue back and evoke a feeling of richness, depth, or weight, as in one or two words. Spielman said, “Numbers with back vowels (such as 1, 2, 4, if the mouth is more rounded) amplify this effect, making the product appear more complex and rich.”
To test these ideas, Spielmann and Vega conducted four separate studies, starting with an implicit association test. This first study recruited 149 participants from North America and measured automatic and subconscious associations between brand names and tastes. Participants sorted words into categories on a computer screen and matched brand names with and without numbers to either taste-related or neutral words.
The researchers measured response latencies, which track how quickly participants could accurately classify categories. The authors found that combining numbered brand names with taste-related words helped participants categorize products significantly faster. This result suggests that people have an underlying implicit belief that food brands featuring numbers taste better than those without numbers.
In the second study, the researchers analyzed wine ratings by experts to see if this pattern held up in natural environments. They collected 695 wine tasting notes from popular international wine magazines over a 12-month period and examined 56 wines with numbers in their names and 639 wines without numbers. They recorded expert scores, which are a proxy for taste and quality, and conducted textual analysis of written reviews.
Wines with numerical brand names received statistically higher expert scores, averaging 93.84 out of 100, compared to 93.15 for brands without numerical values. A deeper qualitative analysis of a balanced subset of 112 tasting notes revealed that reviewers used more abstract and complex language when describing wines numerically. This provides evidence that numerical branding is associated with a more elaborate and structured tasting experience.
The third study tested whether the visual format of numbers matters. Researchers gave 306 North American participants fictitious packages of potato chips. Participants were randomly assigned to view brand names without numbers, numbers written as numbers, or numbers spelled out as words. They then rated their expectations for the taste and complexity of the chips on a seven-point scale.
The findings show that written numbers led to the highest taste expectations, with an average score of 5.42 out of 7 compared to 4.85 for non-number brands. Scores are given in the form of numbers between them. Statistical analysis showed that increased taste expectations were directly related to increased perceived complexity.
For their final study, Szpilman and Vega collected 1,032 consumer wine ratings from Vivino, an online marketplace and community platform. They specifically looked for wines with numbers in their names to assess the impact of audio on consumer ratings. They classified numbers based on their onset sounds, grouping numbers such as 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 as front vowels.
The researchers found that wines with back vowel numbers were rated significantly higher by consumers than wines with front vowel numbers. This effect was highly dependent on the presentation format. For numbers written out as words, back vowel names performed significantly better than front vowel names, receiving a score of 3.91 versus 3.79 out of 5.
For numbers presented as simple numbers, differences in pronunciation did not affect consumer ratings. This suggests that reading words out loud in your head activates these specific sensory associations, while viewing simple numbers does not evoke the same depth of sound.
“Additionally, it was interesting to work with my colleague Diego Vega to confirm that the effects were consistent across different methods, implicit tests, quantitative studies, and also from a descriptive and qualitative perspective,” Szpilman said. “Consumers, both novices and experts, respond differently to numerical brands.”
Brand managers may be able to leverage these findings to increase perceived flavor intensity without changing the actual recipe. For example, a company launching a rich dessert might choose written back vowel numbers to maximize sensory expectations. However, Szpilman observed that many food and beverage companies are missing out on this opportunity.
“What’s more surprising than the results is that the brand names use numbers that clearly don’t take this kind of effect into account,” Szpilman explained. “Marketers pay close attention to the choice of brand names and icons, making sure they fit with the product, company positioning, and company philosophy, but this doesn’t seem to be the case when choosing numbers.”
She pointed to a common disconnect in the wine industry. “For example, many brand names for rich, heavy, broad, oak-scented wines seem to have front vowel names in numeric form, which seems to tend to be lighter and less complex,” Spielman said.
Readers should avoid assuming that adding numbers to a product automatically guarantees market success. Current research focuses on hedonic items consumed primarily for pleasure, particularly potato chips and wine. Products purchased for functional or health-related reasons may not benefit from the same audio or numerical cues, as different psychological mechanisms determine their selection.
Still, the patterns observed in the market suggest a strong underlying trend. “It should be noted that this study was conducted using real data from trusted wine magazines or global wine review platforms, suggesting that this study is representative of a market phenomenon,” Spielman said. “Not many brands use numbers, but when they do, it’s often the brands that are successful in the marketplace (7up, Four Seasons, Penfolds 407, etc.), suggesting that when used properly, numbers can be a powerful brand cue.”
The study also relied entirely on an English-speaking sample and Western food categories. Superstitions about phonetic symbols and numbers vary widely across cultures and languages. “However, the focus here was on English, and the assumption was that numeric brand names would be interpreted in English and pronounced in English,” Szpilman said. “Although English is the most spoken language in the world, the findings apply primarily to English speakers.”
Future research could investigate how these numerical cues influence the actual consumption experience during taste testing. Scientists may also investigate whether an individual’s numeracy skills alter this effect, as consumers who are more proficient with numbers may process these brand names differently. Testing a wider variety of products, including healthy food options, could provide a more complete picture of how numerical brands influence dietary choices.
The study, “The Tasty Side of Numbers: How Vowel Type Influences Taste Perceptions of Number Brand Names,” was authored by Nathalie Spielmann and Diego Vega.
