Every industry has its own unique nomenclature quirks, and automotive is no exception. My absolute favorite is the non-sensical drive to continue to try and re-badge Used cars as Pre-Owned.
You get so used to hearing specific terms in your everyday workings that you become inured to their impact. I hear the term pre-owned every day so I don’t think twice about it anymore. But during a recent online seminar I heard a stat which made me laugh out loud; the presenter said about 1% or less of people looking for a used car start a Google search by typing in the term “Pre-Owned”. So 99% type in USED. And given the fact that about 40 million USED cars are sold every year, that means the chasm between the two terms is ridiculously massive.
Sure, pre-owned sounds much more elegant, but continuing to use it is just plain dumb. If Google searches rule the world – and they do – then we should be aligning our terms to what the marketplace is telling us, rather than doing what a brand manager is fruitlessly trying to make happen.
