Are brand names such as Nike female or male?Previous research suggests that the sound of a person's first name is associated with the person's gender, but no research has tried to use this knowledge to assess the gender of brand names.We present a simple computational approach that uses sound symbolism to address this open issue.Consistent with previous research, a model trained on various linguistic features of name endings predicts human gender with high accuracy.Applying this model to a data set of over a thousand commerciallytraded brands in 17 product categories, our results reveal an overall bias toward male names, cutting across both male-oriented product categories as well as female-oriented categories.In addition, we find variation within categories, suggesting that firms might be seeking to imbue their brands with differentiating characteristics as part of their competitive strategy.

Over the last fifteen years, one of the major developments online has been the growth and proliferation of review websites such as TripAdvisor. The ready availability of independent information from past users poses interesting questions for marketing strategy. What role does advertising play in the new environment? How should firms adjust their advertising strategy to the presence of reviews? In this paper we address these questions in the context of the hotel industry. Using a data set of TripAdvisor hotel reviews and another describing hotels' advertising expenditures, we show, first, that overall ad spending decreased from 2002 to 2015, suggesting that online reviews have had the effect of displacing advertising. Second, there is a negative causal relationship between TripAdvisor ratings and advertising spending in the cross-section: hotels with higher ratings spend less. This suggests that user ratings and advertising are substitutes, not complements. Third, this relationship is stronger for independent hotels than for chains, and stronger in competitive markets than in noncompetitive markets. The former suggests that a strong brand name provides some immunity to reviews, and the latter suggests that when ratings are pivotal, the advertising response might be particularly strong. Finally, we show that the relationship between user ratings and advertising has strengthened over time, as websites such as TripAdvisor have become more influential. This provides further confirmation that the effect of online ratings on advertising operates through the demand side, and not the supply side. Hotels seem to react to reviews if and only if consumers react to them.