Liquid Death, Moral Debt: Ironic Naming and the Effect on Healthiness Perception

ABSTRACT Ironic brand names such as “Liquid Death” and “Surreal Cereal” are increasingly common in the marketplace to compete for consumers’ limited attention. Yet, we know little about their downstream consequences for product inferences. Across experiments, we show that ironic names diminish perceptions of product morality, which in turn lowers perceived health. Importantly, we show that this “irony penalty” holds for virtue products (e.g., smoothies) but is attenuated for vice products (e.g., milkshakes), where moral judgment is less salient and expected. Further, we find that providing diagnostic attribute information on packaging reduces reliance on the name's negative semantics and attenuates the irony penalty. We find that although ironic names seem attention‐grabbing, they do not necessarily translate into purchase intention. Our findings contribute to research on brand naming and health inference by identifying when ironic naming backfires and how firms can mitigate this for products where healthfulness is most salient.