If you are creating a new brand, take note: traditional meaning is only one part of the communication equation. Here's a simple puzzle. Which one of the two nonsense words taketa and naluma do you think goes with each of these pictures? If you're like virtually everyone else, you'll pair taketa with the angular illustration and naluma with the curved one. That's because all the consonants in taketa are what linguists call obstruents, and all the consonants in naluma are sonorants. Obstruents are perceived as harder and sharper; sonorants as softer and smoother. Consider the two brand names Clorox, a hard-working laundry product, and Chanel, a perfume, and you'll get the idea. Welcome to the world of sound symbolism, a concept whose implications linguists have debated for years. Lexicon has completed extensive research into how sound symbolism affects the way brand names are perceived. If a product would be perceived as faster, bigger, or even more reliable depending on how it sounds, it follows that there would be an entirely new set of tools to add to the creative process. The results prove that there is. Several years ago, under the direction of Stanford linguistics professor Dr. Will Leben, Lexicon's brand language group initiated a research program called Sounder to determine if certain consonant sounds do a better job of communicating specific attributes than others. Respondents answered an extensive series of questions about possible names for three hypothetical new products, a performance sedan, a laptop computer, and a headache tablet. The results of our U.S., European and Asian studies, significant at the 95 percent confidence level and independent of both product category and respondent gender, were quite dramatic, and validate the powerful impact sound symbolism has on the communication of both physical and abstract attributes by a brand name. Our linguists are in the process of fielding Sounder II, this time to look at the relationship of sound symbolism to non-physical attributes (think emotions). Pilot results are very encouraging and an expanded study is in the works. Check our web site for updates. In an economy where global brands are the norm rather than the exception, a greater understanding of sound symbolism has put us that much closer to our ultimate goal of deciphering and implementing what we call "the universal language of branding."