Summary
In the Asia-Pacific region, supernatural beliefs traditionally are believed to have a strong influence on product sales performance. In particular, name-giving—whether to a person or a product—has a strong perceived connection to fate. This study examined the relationship between branding practices and supernatural beliefs in China. In more than 50 percent of the cases we studied, the creation of brand names was based, in part, on a “lucky” number of total strokes drawn in creation of the characters that spelled out the brand name. Reinforcing that finding was the discovery that brand names comprising a lucky total-stroke number were more common in high-uncertain than low-uncertain market environments.

Summary
Field research and a laboratory study were conducted to empirically examine the effects of brand relevance, connotation, and pronunciation on consumers' preferences for new brand names. The context theory of memory retrieval and the simplicity principle provided the foundation for our research hypotheses. In both cases, study results supported the main effects of relevance, connotation, and pronunciation of brand names on consumers' brand preference. In addition, results showed that the contribution of connotation will be attenuated if the brand name is difficult to pronounce.

Summary
Following content analysis of American and European grocery products which showed that few products have only one brand name on them and that directly competing firms vary in the corporate name strategies they adopt, the authors set out to discover why. They define five branding strategies - corporate, house, dual, endorsed and furtive - and after discussing possible reasons for these develop a number of hypotheses. These are then tested using structured questionnaires mailed to 100 companies - conclusions are drawn from 48 usable questionnaires providing 120 cases.

Summary
The positive role played by advertising in the market process has been largely ignored by academic economists. It is only recently, since the modern economic revolution, that economists have realized the benefits of advertising and have joined the research agenda developed by researchers in marketing and other business fields. The present survey details the literature that examines the role played by advertising in lowering the 'full price' to consumers which allows consumers to maximize utility and allows the producers/retailers to maximize profits. The review begins with the seminal article by Stigler in 1960 which develops a (now famous) theory of the economics of information. Nelson's characteristics of goods and services are surveyed along with the extensions of other economists to the classification frameworks of Nelson and Porter. The survey follows the development of the theory of advertising in economics to the present day, and provides recent theoretical advances as well as empirical tests of these seminal theories.