When your back’s against the wall and you’ve hit rock bottom, rather
than praying for a gift, pray for the strength to keep pushing, because
you do have it in you, and pray for wisdom, for the intelligence and the
clarity that will help you navigate the often murky waters of life to
your promised land.
(CavemanCircus.com)
Monday, July 10, 2017
The Selling Importance Of Brand Names
The $170,000 Breitling in the Bentley Bentayga, and other cobranding stories
Clocks were an ego play, mostly – a subtle early marketing tool for carmakers. In its early phaetons, Cadillac offered as an option dashboard timepieces by the Waltham Watch Company, the preeminent U.S. watchmaker of the day. But brand collaboration expressly for marketing purposes really took hold after World War II. Consider: On May 27, 2016, at the opulent Concorso d'Eleganza, on Italy's Lake Como, a 1948 Talbot-Lago T26 Grand Sport Cabriolet sold a cool $1.3 million. A sum like that fetches a car with impeccable provenance, needless to say. But the value of this particular example rose significantly because of one-off coachwork by Franay as well as a plush interior and bespoke fitted luggage, both in red leather with white piping and, importantly, both designed and fabricated by Hermes. So the association of Talbot-Lago with two other big names – Franay and Hermes – served to increase the prestige and value of an already prestigious and valuable car.
"That car is worth significantly more as a result of the brand collaboration," says Ian Kelleher, chief marketing officer of RM Sotheby. "You're looking really at one of the finest examples of the bespoke automotive tradition."
The Marketing Genius of Jack Heuer
If it's true that automotive brand collaborations began largely for practical reasons, it's equally the case that they evolved quickly for marketing purposes. The theory goes that the cross-pollination of two brands burnishes the marketing image of both, while at the same time making each one more desirable to customers. Heuer is perhaps the first timepiece brand that comes to mind today in association with cars, though Breitling and its association with Bentley, can't be ignored.
For this we can credit Jack Heuer himself, who invented the modern notion of car-watch cobranding. From the 1930s through the 1980s, Heuer made dashboard chronographs for use in road rallies – and, honestly, also as mechanical eye candy for drivers and passengers alike. We would be remiss if we failed to mention the marketing play that Heuer made when he delivered a bunch of watches to the set of the movie Le Mans. Steve McQueen selected a Heuer Monaco, and the rest is history. Reaching back a bit further in history, Kelleher cites the Waltham watch option in the Cadillac V18 Phaeton of the 1930s, which offered a tony Waltham timepiece as an option. Without that precedent, he says, Jack Heuer may not have had the notion that turned out to be a stroke of genius. After the Heuer-Le Mans-McQueen marketing juggernaut, utility as a raison d'etre of automotive cobranding disappeared.
"Now it's all about marketing," Kelleher says. "Branding and marketing in today's world is even more important given the plethora of choices that the consumer has. Any opportunity that manufacturers have to enhance the view of their product by association with another high-quality, luxury brand, they are wise to take it."
(AutoBlog.com)
Clocks were an ego play, mostly – a subtle early marketing tool for carmakers. In its early phaetons, Cadillac offered as an option dashboard timepieces by the Waltham Watch Company, the preeminent U.S. watchmaker of the day. But brand collaboration expressly for marketing purposes really took hold after World War II. Consider: On May 27, 2016, at the opulent Concorso d'Eleganza, on Italy's Lake Como, a 1948 Talbot-Lago T26 Grand Sport Cabriolet sold a cool $1.3 million. A sum like that fetches a car with impeccable provenance, needless to say. But the value of this particular example rose significantly because of one-off coachwork by Franay as well as a plush interior and bespoke fitted luggage, both in red leather with white piping and, importantly, both designed and fabricated by Hermes. So the association of Talbot-Lago with two other big names – Franay and Hermes – served to increase the prestige and value of an already prestigious and valuable car.
"That car is worth significantly more as a result of the brand collaboration," says Ian Kelleher, chief marketing officer of RM Sotheby. "You're looking really at one of the finest examples of the bespoke automotive tradition."
The Marketing Genius of Jack Heuer
If it's true that automotive brand collaborations began largely for practical reasons, it's equally the case that they evolved quickly for marketing purposes. The theory goes that the cross-pollination of two brands burnishes the marketing image of both, while at the same time making each one more desirable to customers. Heuer is perhaps the first timepiece brand that comes to mind today in association with cars, though Breitling and its association with Bentley, can't be ignored.
For this we can credit Jack Heuer himself, who invented the modern notion of car-watch cobranding. From the 1930s through the 1980s, Heuer made dashboard chronographs for use in road rallies – and, honestly, also as mechanical eye candy for drivers and passengers alike. We would be remiss if we failed to mention the marketing play that Heuer made when he delivered a bunch of watches to the set of the movie Le Mans. Steve McQueen selected a Heuer Monaco, and the rest is history. Reaching back a bit further in history, Kelleher cites the Waltham watch option in the Cadillac V18 Phaeton of the 1930s, which offered a tony Waltham timepiece as an option. Without that precedent, he says, Jack Heuer may not have had the notion that turned out to be a stroke of genius. After the Heuer-Le Mans-McQueen marketing juggernaut, utility as a raison d'etre of automotive cobranding disappeared.
"Now it's all about marketing," Kelleher says. "Branding and marketing in today's world is even more important given the plethora of choices that the consumer has. Any opportunity that manufacturers have to enhance the view of their product by association with another high-quality, luxury brand, they are wise to take it."
(AutoBlog.com)
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