Katakana is used by many companies to brand their products. This can be done for a variety of reasons. The most obvious is to grab attention. Examples of this can be film titles, food products, and, of course, company names. Many seem to think katakana stands out and will be noticed by potential consumers better than hirigana or kanji. Another reason, at least for certain companies, would be katakana's ties to the technical and scientific industries. It would seem that many advances and introductions to the world of science and technology at first came from outside Japan. Since they were foreign words they were translated into katakana. Since then, the trend was set and many things related to those industries use katakana. One other reason, among many, for the use of Katakana may be the desire for a global position. Many Japanese companies, while still using the three traditional Japanese scripts, use romaji translations of their company names to create a world-recognized branding. To look further into this, I decided to look at the history of Japan's largest company - Toyota.
The offshoot of a successful automated loom company, Toyota traveled a long road to become the global automotive giant we know today. The company was founded by Sakichi Toyoda in the early 1930's (using the kanji representation) and as it became a global player it held a contest to rename the company to be suitable for Japanese as well as American markets. A majority of votes were put forth for a simple change, トヨタ or Toyota. There are many reasons why this change is thought to be so popular, but the most prevalent is the reduction from 10 strokes to 8. The number eight in Japanese culture is thought, by some, to hold significant meaning and luck. But this did not mean they would stop using the highly honorific kanji. For their first production model, the Toyota AA, the company emblazoned the hood with an emblem that stated the company name with both highly-stylized kanji characters and the katakana spelling underneath (see picture below.) As neat as that all sounds, the road to Toyota was a little more complex and underscores the importance of a global view when developing a successful brand.
In 1957, Toyota began a real push into the American market with a car that had been very successful in Japan. The Crown 2-door sedan was wildly popular in Japan and earned the nickname "Toyopet" due to its small size and tiny motor. The name and car were so popular that Japan decided to launch the American debut under the actual brand name of Toyopet or トヨペット。But, even back then, Americans were obsessed with gigantic cars and gas-guzzling engines and the cute little Crown didn't stand a chance. Never a culture to accept defeat lightly, Japan's Toyota reworked their international strategy until they developed the larger, faster Crown model for the American market. In 1965, they would drop the トヨペット name (which in America was too connotative of "toys" and "pets" which reminded people of the tiny cars previously available) altogether and began using トヨタ。
So all of this history of a single brand name would speak to the various explanations given by so many sources on the topic of Katakana usage. In the case of Toyota we have such aspects as: marketing, science and technology, and foreign influence. All of which have been successfully harnessed to create such an influential global corporation.
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You chose a great topic that is familiar to the Japanese society. I wonder how many Japanese people know the reasons behind the naming of トヨタ.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to see how word character (in this situation, changing from kanji to katakana) can affect a company's future. It certainly was a good idea for the company to change the name!
With the naming トヨペット, did you think the naming also affected the failure of launching a new car in the states?
ありがとございます。
ReplyDeleteIt was interesting to see the way the company adapted its name for a global market. I certainly think the name トヨペット had a negative effect on the initial launch into the American car market. But Toyota was impressive in its reading this market and adjusting its strategy. Thanks again for your comments!
Hi Andrew,
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your hard work on putting together this project. You did a really nice job of linking up the use of katakana to evoke images of science and technology (even in words that are not originally foreign) with the specific historical changes surrounding Toyota in the American market. If you want to explore this further, you might want to think about how, especially in the case of Toyota, the use of katakana, hiragana and kanji can be fluid and move back & forth depending on time and place. As you correctly pointed out, the vote to change the company name to トヨタ did not stop them from putting the kanji on the hood of their first model. You might also want to look at how the history of Toyota's naming practices relate to the location of their central plant, Toyota City (still written 豊田市), which was in part named for/by the company itself. Marking the place with a Japanese tone and the company with a scientific/international one could be a fun way to think about the complexities of katakana naming.
Great job and best of luck!