Researchers have recently begun investigating how visual elements affect brand positioning. However, little is known about the effect of brand typeface features on brand premiumness. This paper proposes and verifies that letter case affects consumers’ perceived brand premiumness. Eight experiments, including one eye-tracking experiment, reveal that consumers perceive brands that use all uppercase letters (“uppercase brands”) as more premium than those that use all lowercase letters (“lowercase brands”). We refer to this effect as the “uppercase premium effect.” This effect is induced by the perceived conspicuousness of uppercase brands, a process which in turn is moderated by the product's social visibility. The effect is reversed for consumers who prefer subtle signals (“inconspicuous consumers”) because these consumers are likely to perceive a conspicuous uppercase brand as gaudy. Whereas status-motivated consumers are more likely to choose uppercase brands due to the increased premiumness perceptions, the increment in such perceptions does not further influence the purchase decisions of consumers indifferent to expressing status. We conclude with a discussion of theoretical and practical implications and offer suggestions for further research.

研究人员最近开始研究视觉元素如何影响品牌定位。然而，关于品牌字体特征对品牌溢价的影响知之甚少。本文提出并验证了字母大小写对消费者品牌溢价感知的影响。包括一项眼球追踪实验在内的八项实验表明，消费者认为全大写字母的品牌（“大写品牌”）比全小写字母的品牌（“小写品牌”）更优质。我们将这种效应称为“大写溢价效应”。这种效应是由大写品牌的显着性引起的，而这一过程又受到产品的社会知名度的缓和。对于喜欢微妙信号的消费者（“不显眼的消费者”），效果正好相反，因为这些消费者可能会认为一个显眼的大写品牌是花哨的。虽然由于高级感的增加，身份动机的消费者更有可能选择大写品牌，但这种认知的增加并不会进一步影响消费者对表达身份的购买决定的影响。最后，我们讨论了理论和实践意义，并为进一步的研究提供了建议。