I’m in Milan, just after Christmas. Via Monte Napoleone is full of fashionable stores and even more fashionable shoppers – even at dusk.
The lights are lit, even on the trees lining the road.
The difference is that the trees are growing from creamy white Fiat Cinquecentos – new style of course (and moulded from immaculate plastic).
Volkswagen Beetles – eat your hearts out. All you had was that dinky flower vase. This is on a grander scale. But, alas not so easily translated from design show feature to real life – it’s not yet one of the configuration options!
Fiat claim to have set up the world’s longest one model traffic jam at 3 km. A fleet of Cinquecentos parading the street and blocking the parking and makes a much sharper style statement…
Isn’t it funny how you retain a real love for those brands you have worked on in the past? Many years ago I was lucky enough to start my career at DDB working on the Volkswagen account. I learnt a lot about the creation of great work and especially great copywriting.
The latest Golf ad – ‘Why drive something like a Golf when you can drive a Golf?’ – shows that clearly they aren’t missing me, and are still producing great ads!
In my earlier post, I suggested that BMW seemed not to be sticking to a coherent brand positioning. Admittedly, this rather stark hypothesis was based on several pieces of TV advertising, not on the wealth of marketing data we would normally be reviewing. Nevertheless, I felt that there was something not entirely in order with how BMW was joining all the marketing dots.
I wasn’t hugely surprised, then, when Campaign recently posted news about BMW calling a pitch for its advertising, digital and direct marketing accounts. The article stated that “the review is part of a statutory process that requires its accounts to be pitched every five years”. It so happens that the review will also include their UK advertising account led by US agency, GSD&M Idea City, appointed earlier in the year and responsible for their latest TV campaigns.
It looks as though BMW also think that brands like theirs deserve a robust, coherent and joined-up marketing plan…
