Branding is everything

So why did I choose cars as a topic while looking into the impact of branding. Because it is a perfect example on how branding truly effects our choice when buying a car. Lets face it cars are there to bring us from point A to B. Yes some cars are better then others when it comes to fuel consumption, safety, and speed, but these characteristics are not usually what drives people to spend lots of money on cars. The main factor is not the functional one as mentioned above but the emotional one. Functional and comparative are statistics and facts that can be measured and proven. Still the emotional factor, which is so important, is the hard one to calculate. For example how can a company like Mercedes determine what feelings runs through a persons head when he/she sees the clip shown at my previous post? Each person can interpret the image in a different way because it is hard to measure the emotion involved does not mean that it does not exists. Why would companies bother to bombard us with advertisements, PR campaigns, branding. A big company like Mercedes sends out messages that ‘yes a car can bring you form A to B, but you will feel much more successful, cool, and luxuries if you drive there product’. Renault might want the costumer to associate sitting in there car with the speed and technology of a Formula 1 car, while others might invest in making their image greener to satisfy a consumers conscience.
In Davies Gray’s book one can find a simple exercise to further understand how branding can be evaluated.

The most commonly used metaphor in branding is that of a brad as a person. We
pretend that the company is a person and draw parallels from our better
understanding of people, including here that an organization, like a person, can
have a personality. (Gray Davies)

A good example on how aware a company is of Image and Branding is Ford automobiles. Over the years Ford has bought and took over other car manufacturers such as Volvo, Lincoln, Mercury, Jaguar, and Land Rover. The heads at Ford realize that the Jaguar customer is looking for a different product then that sought by a Ford customer. A Jaguar customer is also expecting a different experience and service then a Ford customer. That is why Ford has separated the companies in order to convey different messages and emotion, rather then uniting all there products under one umbrella image.

With this i conclude my trip to Paris and my short insight into automobile branding, hope you enjoyed it and see you next posting.

Regards & Shalom YD.

Honda F1 Green Car

I just got back from roaming the streets of Paris. I plan to return tomorrow for some more windows shopping, for now that is the only kind of shopping I can afford. Sticking with the automobile theme, on French TV news they just showed the unveiling of the new Honda F1 racer in London. From what I understand is that it is getting more publicity then usual because instead of being marked by oil and alcohol brands, it’s got an image of the earth on it. This means that Honda is wiling to give up on millions of dollars in sponsorship in order to green wash us. The head of the Honda F1 team claims that by pulling off this stunt they are trying to raise awareness towards environmental issues. I think that all Honda is doing is using CSR tactics in order to make us think they whole company is more green. If Honda really wanted set an example they would have to modify the inside of the car where the real environmental threat exists.

"Climate change is probably the single biggest issue facing the global
community and F1 is not immune from it," team boss Nick Fry said in a statement
today.

The Trailor of the Honda F1 car

Peugeot and Renault

The two French car manufacturers Peugeot and Renault had a totally different approach and message for the thousands of visitors that day. Renault designed its showroom like a F1 racing Track. Featuring two authentic F1 racing cars together with a pit-box and a cheering crowd made up of dummies. The room also included computers, games, and gadgets. The whole idea was to convey how innovative a bit more exciting Renault has become while being associated with F1 racing. It seemed like a very attractive place for the whole family and so where the automobiles on display. The message Peugeot was displaying was equally attractive for the whole family, only its showroom and cars exhibited where all about corporate social responsibility. Everywhere you looked you everything seemed environmentally friendly. The automobiles on display not only had a very no conventional shape put ran on revolutionary fuel cells and electricity (making sure everybody visiting understood that they where the first in the country to use green technology). Both showrooms where built to attract families with its bright colors and many attractions hinting what its target audience is.

Unveiling of the Renault F1 car (note the complexity of the event and the amount of press photographers)

Mercedes Benz

Mercedes was all about its own product. Even though they where presenting there normal car models, its still was a big attraction. The architecture of the showroom seemed to have been designed to be consistent with the automobile. The showroom also included a merchandise store that had everything from teddy bears, to mountain bikes. It was clearly visible that the designers did not include any other attractions in the store. The message therefore was clear; the product is the main attraction, independent of everything else. It seemed that the merchandise exhibited in the store bearing the Mercedes symbol automatically inherited all the emotion associated with the car which many would say is a product of total perfection. The theme of the whole room seemed to spell out luxury, precision, and excellence. Exactly the kind of emotion Mercedes wants you to feel while watching their ads, entering their showroom and most important driving their car.

Mercedes cars have a unique reputation. They are classy, expensive, well
made, reliable, and somewhat sporting in their overall feel

(Olins, Wally)

This video displays the messages mentioned above about Mercedes conveying luxury, precision, and excellence.

Automobile showrooms

On the Champs-Elysées apart from the large amount of cloth and fashion stores there are car showrooms. I visited Mercedes Benz, Peugeot and Renault showrooms in order to see if there were any different characteristics. Large amount of people flooded all three automobile stores, making it a perfect scene to brand and advertise the company name. As expected each store had a total different way of branding itself in order to attract a different target audience and to convey a specific message.

Is there any value in a corporate brand

In today’s market environment companies have to invest large sums of money in order to make their products known and standout above the rest. Brands today are recognized simply by glancing at their logo, furthermore emotional and factual connotations can emerge being associated with that specific logo. These associations include vast amounts of characteristics such as reliable, fashionable, sexy, luxury, environmentally friendly, rare and many more. The way a company markets itself can determine its success or even its downfall. So does branding have enough power to make us walk into a store and buy one product over another? or is there no real power behind it.

Currently i am visiting Paris and in order to really understand the power of a brand i will visit one of the most famous streets in Europe, the Champs-Elysées . I will visit the Champs-Elysées tomorrow to search for some branding attractions that might give me something interesting to report . I will also try to include some photos of the places i will visit.