Sensational spelling

Sensational spelling is the deliberate spelling of a word in an incorrect or non-standard way for special effect.

Branding

Sensational spellings are common in advertising and product placement. In particular, brand names such as Cadbury's "Creme Egg" (standard English spelling: cream), Weet-Bix, Blu-ray (blue) or Kellogg's "Froot Loops" (fruit) may use unexpected spellings to draw attention to or trademark an otherwise common word. In video games, a well-known example of sensational spelling is Mortal Kombat, in which the word "combat" is deliberately misspelled by replacing the hard C sound with the letter K (similarly, some versions had an "Insert Koin" prompt in the attract mode).

Misspellings are sometimes used to avoid trademark disputes, where using the standard spelling might be considered false advertising or violate labeling regulations (e.g. "kream" for a nondairy food product) or as a search engine optimization technique.

In popular culture

Sensational spelling may take on a cult value in popular culture. An example of this is the heavy metal umlaut. Also, the rail service Amtrak is a portmanteau of the words "America" and "track", the latter having a sensational spelling of "trak".