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INTRODUCTION
Type font influences readability of advertisements (McCarthy and Mothersbaugh, 2002), memorability of advertising claims (Childers and Jass, 2002), brand identity (Zaichkowsky, 2010) and brand attitude (Pan and Schmitt, 1996). Type font also shapes brand personality perceptions (Batra et al , 1993), yet the relationship between type font and brand personality has not been empirically tested. How brand personality is shaped is of managerial and theoretical importance because it affects brand-related consumer responses (Aaker, 1997; Kim et al , 2001; Aaker et al , 2004; Hynes, 2009; Samu and Krishnan, 2010). This research examines the impact of type fonts used to display brand names on brand personality perceptions. The type font characteristics explored consist of harmony, natural, elaborate, weight and flourish (Henderson et al , 2004). Harmony pertains to font symmetry and balance, natural captures how representative and organic it is, elaborate describes font complexity and depth, weight indicates how heavy and compressed the font is, and flourish denotes the presence or absence of serifs (Henderson et al , 2004). The brand personality perceptions examined here are excitement, sincerity, sophistication, ruggedness and competence (Aaker, 1997).
CONCEPTUAL BACKGROUND
Consumers associate human personality traits with brands (Aaker, 1997). This association occurs with brand names, logos, spokespeople, packaging and product attributes (Batra et al , 1993; Stuart and Muzellec, 2004). This research examines whether type font characteristics serve as effective cues to brand personality for new brands. Although brand names are often presented with semantic information (for example, in print advertisements), they frequently appear in isolation (for example, on signage, logos). In such contexts, type fonts may be the only cue to brand personality marketers can initially employ.
Impressions evoked from type font
Related findings show that brand names can enhance awareness and contribute to favorable perceptions of a new product (Aaker and Keller, 1990). This stream of literature has demonstrated that a variety of cues influence consumer perceptions, including phonetic symbolism (Klink, 2000; Argo et al , 2010), color (Pantin-Sohier and Brée, 2004), word length (Buttle and Westoby, 2006) and language translations (Schmitt and Zhang, 2012). In addition, research supports that type fonts evoke specific consumer impressions. Tantillo et al (1995) found that serif type fonts (for example, Times New Roman) were perceived as elegant, charming,...