Strike One: Attack of The Clones.
Over
the last 15 years the auto industry has become one big strip mall. With
few exceptions, all the cars now look alike. There was a time, as
recent as the late 1980s, when a Jaguar looked like a Jaguar and
nothing else. A Porsche was a Porsche. And you could spot a Mercedes
doing 85mph in dense fog at night from 10 miles out and still know that
you just got lapped by a Benz.
But today, if you line up most cars and strip the off logos, a BMW looks like an Acura looks like a Lexus looks like an Infiniti looks like a Honda looks like a Chrysler looks like a Nissan. Even most SUVs and minivans look alike. Besides the Hummer and maybe the Beetle, you could probably get hit head-on by a car doing 5 mph in broad daylight under the California sun and still not be sure of exactly what hit you. Blame NAFTA, blame globalization, blame scared money, but whatever the cause carmakers have me-too’d themselves into a milquetoast traffic jam.
For decades, our client’s logo—a silver, encircled three-point star—always sat up on the hood like a middle finger to the whole world. Well they changed it. On some models they slanted it back; on other models they pulled it completely off the hood and recessed it into the grille like an insincere apology. Every model used to have these stiff, upright, purposeful curves and uppity lines, even on their convertibles. But they changed those, too. They went sportier, more laid back, more “whatever, guy,” more like everyone else.
Next thing you know, they’re asking folks to drop $45Gs on soupped-up Camry clones.
Strike Two: Ballin’ Out of Control.
Funny thing about the whole “affordable luxury” movement… it’s an oxymoron. Luxury and access don’t mix. If everyone can afford it, it’s not luxury; it’s standard. Luxury is about being better than standard and being too unique to be average. When you’re pushing a luxury brand the last thing you want to do is franchise it. You want to be in the Robb Report, not Wal-Mart.
Luxury is the velvet rope outside the club: your brand becomes exclusive because you exclude, luxurious because you brand it as such. You get hot by trading volume for a sky-high price-per-unit and elitist cache. And if you’re patient, selective, and focused you’ll become a luxury brand for decades, generations even.
For the longest time, my client was a master at this. But then all of a sudden, they got dumb or arrogant or greedy or all of the above; and somewhere around the mid 1990s, they jumped on the affordable luxury bandwagon along with Armani Exchange, Lady Godiva, Starbucks, gold/platinum cards, cellphones, etc. They started rolling out entry-level models for around 40Gs. (Today some of their models start as low as 29-and-change.) They also started pushing fleets of pre-owned models to attract even more working-class folks... Almost over night they drove 100 years of luxurious elitism and exclusivity right off a cliff.
Sure, they started pulling in drivers who couldn’t afford their cars before; but now they were alienating their core upscale consumers, many of who now felt like they needed to upgrade to a more luxurious status symbol to further differentiate themselves once again. And that’s another problem with affordable luxury: people love to exclude. As much as people want to belong to something that’s bigger than them, they also want some control over just how big that something gets.
If you sell me a product on the premise that it’s tailor-made just for me and I buy it looking to feel special and stand out from the crowd, and then I turn around and see five hundred other folks rocking the same thing, eventually I’m gonna feel like I just got hustled; and to a certain degree, I’ll be correct. And of course, you’ll make money short term, but long term, that “affordable luxury” angle really hustles all involved. It artificially expands the status quo and cuts the legs right out from under luxury.
(This is largely why our client regularly spends tens of millions of extra dollars developing additional higher-end models in hopes of winning back some of their original core consumers.)
But today, if you line up most cars and strip the off logos, a BMW looks like an Acura looks like a Lexus looks like an Infiniti looks like a Honda looks like a Chrysler looks like a Nissan. Even most SUVs and minivans look alike. Besides the Hummer and maybe the Beetle, you could probably get hit head-on by a car doing 5 mph in broad daylight under the California sun and still not be sure of exactly what hit you. Blame NAFTA, blame globalization, blame scared money, but whatever the cause carmakers have me-too’d themselves into a milquetoast traffic jam.
For decades, our client’s logo—a silver, encircled three-point star—always sat up on the hood like a middle finger to the whole world. Well they changed it. On some models they slanted it back; on other models they pulled it completely off the hood and recessed it into the grille like an insincere apology. Every model used to have these stiff, upright, purposeful curves and uppity lines, even on their convertibles. But they changed those, too. They went sportier, more laid back, more “whatever, guy,” more like everyone else.
Next thing you know, they’re asking folks to drop $45Gs on soupped-up Camry clones.
Strike Two: Ballin’ Out of Control.
Luxury is the velvet rope outside the club: your brand becomes exclusive because you exclude, luxurious because you brand it as such. You get hot by trading volume for a sky-high price-per-unit and elitist cache. And if you’re patient, selective, and focused you’ll become a luxury brand for decades, generations even.
For the longest time, my client was a master at this. But then all of a sudden, they got dumb or arrogant or greedy or all of the above; and somewhere around the mid 1990s, they jumped on the affordable luxury bandwagon along with Armani Exchange, Lady Godiva, Starbucks, gold/platinum cards, cellphones, etc. They started rolling out entry-level models for around 40Gs. (Today some of their models start as low as 29-and-change.) They also started pushing fleets of pre-owned models to attract even more working-class folks... Almost over night they drove 100 years of luxurious elitism and exclusivity right off a cliff.
Sure, they started pulling in drivers who couldn’t afford their cars before; but now they were alienating their core upscale consumers, many of who now felt like they needed to upgrade to a more luxurious status symbol to further differentiate themselves once again. And that’s another problem with affordable luxury: people love to exclude. As much as people want to belong to something that’s bigger than them, they also want some control over just how big that something gets.
If you sell me a product on the premise that it’s tailor-made just for me and I buy it looking to feel special and stand out from the crowd, and then I turn around and see five hundred other folks rocking the same thing, eventually I’m gonna feel like I just got hustled; and to a certain degree, I’ll be correct. And of course, you’ll make money short term, but long term, that “affordable luxury” angle really hustles all involved. It artificially expands the status quo and cuts the legs right out from under luxury.
(This is largely why our client regularly spends tens of millions of extra dollars developing additional higher-end models in hopes of winning back some of their original core consumers.)
