Saatchi & Saatchi’s new chief strategy officer, Leif Stromnes, explains why invoking the image and scent of an elephant’s hot breath allows one company to charge an eye-watering amount of money for a tub of paint.
If you one day happen to find yourself standing in the showroom of Farrow & Ball, Britain’s most prestigious paint company, you might find yourself inexplicably drawn to a particular shade of warm grey.
The colour itself is unremarkable, but the name is anything but.
“Elephant’s Breath” sits amongst dozens of other Farrow & Ball’s greys, but this particular colour is consistently a top seller.
Technically, it is nearly identical to colours with names like “Classic Grey,” “Dove Tale,” and “Skimming Stone” but somehow “Elephant’s Breath” feels more interesting, more sophisticated and more worth the £44 per litre (AU$89) price tag.
The company’s other top sellers follow a similar pattern. “Dead Salmon” outsells its other pinks, “Mouse’s Back” is its top selling brown and “Dead Flat” is Farrow & Ball’s best-selling matte paint.
In a similar fashion, Crayola’s top selling crayons have names such as “Razzmatazz”, “Piggy Pink”, and “Macaroni & Cheese”, and for MAC Cosmetics “Dangerous Red” and “Ruby Woo” outsells plain old red lipstick at a rate of ten to one.
What Farrow & Ball, Crayola and MAC Cosmetics are successfully exploiting is a powerful psychological phenomenon that marketing researchers Elizabeth Miller and Barbara Kahn have appropriately labelled the “band tourism effect”.
In their research, Miller and Kahn discovered that products with unusual, exotic, or unexpected names are perceived as higher quality, more desirable, and worth paying more for even when the products themselves are identical to their plainly named counterparts.
In one study, they presented participants with identical jelly beans, but varied only the names. Some jelly beans were labelled with common flavour names like “cherry” or “lemon.” Others received elaborate, evocative names like “cherry jubilee” or “lemon drop”.
The results were striking. Participants rated the elaborately named jelly beans as more flavourful, more premium, and more appealing. They were also willing to pay up to 20 per cent more for jelly beans with unusual names, despite tasting identical products.
In another experiment, the researchers tested sweaters. Identical garments were presented with either simple colour names like “green” or elaborate descriptions like “Monet water lily green”.
Once again, the exotically named sweaters were perceived as higher quality and commanded premium pricing.
Remarkably, the effect works even when consumers are explicitly aware of the naming strategy.
Miller and Kahn found that participants who were told about the research and warned that product names might be influencing their judgments still showed the same preference patterns. The psychological impact of elaborate naming appears to operate below the threshold of conscious control.
The study reveals that our brains use naming complexity as a mental shortcut for quality assessment. When we encounter an unusually named product, we unconsciously assume that someone has put extra thought, care, and expertise into its creation.
Simple names like “red” or “blue” are processed so quickly that they barely register in our consciousness. But names like “autumn harvest red” or “Mediterranean sea blue” force our brains to work a little harder and this extra mental effort doesn’t feel like work. It feels like discovery.
When you hear “Elephant’s Breath,” your brain immediately starts making associations. You might think about the soft, warm grey of an elephant’s skin, the exotic locations where elephants roam, or the gentle exhalation of these magnificent creatures. These rich associations create mental imagery, making the product feel more vivid and engaging.
The food industry has mastered the brand tourism effect with particular sophistication.
Häagen-Dazs built an entire brand around meaningless but exotic-sounding names. The founders, Reuben and Rose Mattus, were Polish immigrants living in the Bronx who wanted their ice cream to sound Danish and premium. They invented “Häagen-Dazs”, a completely fabricated name with no meaning in any language because it sounded European and sophisticated to American consumers.
They also used this principle in naming their flavours. Vanilla was renamed “Vanilla Swiss Almond” with an elaborate backstory about Swiss Alpine traditions and hand-selected almonds. Sales increased by 40 per cent, even though the recipe remained unchanged. The elaborate name created expectations of superior quality, richer flavours, and a more luxurious experience.
But there are limits to the power of unusual names.
The effect works best in low-risk, high-choice categories where differences between products are subtle and emotional connection matters. No one wants prescription medicine called “Moonlit Whimsy” or financial services branded as “Cosmic Abundance”.
The names also can’t be so unusual that they become confusing or off-putting. Farrow & Ball’s “Dead Salmon” works because it evokes a specific, sophisticated colour. A paint called “Roadkill Possum” would likely fail, despite being equally unusual.
Another caveat is that the unusual name must connect logically to the product experience. “Elephant’s Breath” evokes a specific, sophisticated greyish tone and “Monster Green” complements the intensity and fun of the jelly bean category.
Finally, and most importantly, the product itself must live up to the expectations created by the name. Unusual names raise the bar. They promise something special. If the actual experience doesn’t match the anticipation created by the name, customers feel deceived rather than delighted.
This is why Farrow & Ball’s strategy works so well. Their paints are genuinely superior with richer pigments, better coverage and more sophisticated formulations. The unusual names aren’t masking mediocrity but rather highlighting real quality in a memorable way.
The brand tourism effect offers a powerful lesson for marketers.
Consumers don’t just buy products, they buy stories, experiences, and identities.
A well-chosen unusual name can transform a commodity into a premium experience, and a functional purchase into an emotional connection.
As you might discover in that London showroom, sometimes the difference between “Light Grey” and “Elephant’s Breath” isn’t just a name, it’s an entire world of associations and possibilities.
And that world, it turns out, is worth paying £44 per litre for.
