advertising - LingoDigest

Lost in the Supermarket: Brand Name Linguistics

6 min read

Why did the Chevy Nova supposedly fail in Spanish-speaking markets? This cautionary tale, though likely a myth, highlights the high-stakes world of global branding where linguistic blunders can be costly. We explore how phonetics, cultural connotations, and morphology can make or break a product’s name, turning it into either an international success or a cross-cultural joke.

Sociolinguistics Pragmatics Psycholinguistics

The Hidden Verbs of Persuasion: How Advertising Language Gets Inside Your Head

5 min read

Every word in an advertisement is chosen with surgical precision. Beyond marketing psychology, specific linguistic tricks—from “weasel words” like ‘helps’ to the syntactic ambiguity of “gets clothes cleaner”—are designed to bypass your critical thinking and create legally defensible desire. This article dissects famous slogans to reveal the hidden grammar that gets inside your head.