The Tasty Side of Numbers: How Vowel Type Influences Taste Perceptions for Numerical Brand Names

Numerical brand names are commonly used in food marketing yet underexplored for their sensory impact. Relying on processing fluency theory, across four studies, including an IAT ( n = 149), a quantitative and qualitative lexical analysis of professional wine tasting notes ( n = 695), an online study ( n = 306), and archival consumer wine ratings ( n = 1032), we demonstrate that numerical brand elements enhance perceived taste via heightened complexity perceptions. Numerical brands outperform non‐numerical ones, with written formats superior to digits due to disfluency signaling complexity. Back‐vowel (vs. front‐vowel) numbers amplify this effect by evoking elaborate profiles. These findings bridge sound symbolism, numerical cognition, and cross‐modal effects, showing numbers are visual‐linguistic primes that bias gustatory expectations, even when non‐diagnostic or not relating quantitative information. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.