« Is Comcast's Smartplay a Smart Brand Naming Move? | Main | Recognizable Product Names and Company Names »

April 7, 2006

Brand Naming: Gentlemen Prefer Broncos…and Durangos and Wrangler

DurangoAt least one feels that we do in fact assign genders to products in the process of naming brands.

  • The Ford Bronco is clearly a masculine name while the Toyota Sequoia is more feminine.
  • The name Durango is also masculine (names ending in “o” in Spanish are masculine).

The article talks about the “leakage” of gendered words into English. Makita Power Tools - whose target market is predominately male but whose name sounds female - had a hurdle to overcome when they came to the U.S. I think that we in the product naming business have been purposely gendering products for years to appeal to the correct target market, and language leakage is only a part of this.

It is no secret that a car like the Jeep Wrangler is clearly designed for the male target market, while the Renault Clio is much more feminine and demure. My recent on HERO Honda’s motorcycle names also shows the increasing moodiness of the male mind when it comes to their favorite brands.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , ,

Posted by William Lozito at April 7, 2006 1:05 PM
Posted to | | | | | |

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.namedevelopment.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/3184

Leave a comment