This study aims to investigate whether the ease with which a dietary supplement ingredient name is pronounced influences consumer perceptions of the product’s efficacy.
In a preregistered between-subjects experiment, 300 US MTurk workers (n = 280 after attention checks; M_age = 34 years, 78 % male) viewed an ad for a fictional brand (NatureMind) whose only difference was the ingredient name: the fluent “Turmera” versus the disfluent “Tetrahydrocurcuminoid.” Participants reported perceived efficacy (two items), perceived fluency, trust and self-reported supplement knowledge. Mediation (Model 4) and moderation (Model 1) were tested with Hayes’s PROCESS macro.
An easy-to-pronounce ingredient name (“Turmera”) made the product seem slightly more helpful for memory than the hard-to-pronounce name (“Tetrahydrocurcuminoid”; p = 0.055, η² = 0.013). No difference appeared on the broader item “likely to be effective” (p = 0.168). A significant Fluency × Knowledge interaction (p = 0.014) showed that, as name difficulty increased, perceived efficacy decreased among low-knowledge consumers but remained unchanged among high-knowledge consumers
The findings have implications for marketers, public health policymakers and consumer protection advocates. Marketers may use ingredient name fluency as a subtle but powerful tool to enhance product appeal. Conversely, regulators may need to consider how linguistic features can bias consumer judgments in the absence of clinical evidence, potentially misleading consumers about a product’s actual efficacy.
This study applies the well-established concept of processing fluency to the setting of dietary supplements, examining whether the pronounceability of an ingredient name functions as a subtle judgment cue. By testing this mechanism in a health-product context, the work adds to the fluency literature and points to ingredient naming as one of several linguistic factors that can influence consumer evaluations, especially for less-knowledgeable users.
