Merc-antile Hitchhiking

“I woke up as the sun was reddening… I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel…”

– Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Taking a page from the Beats, brandchannel reported earlier this week on one man’s attempt to hitchhike through Europe relying solely on the good nature of those behind the wheels of Mercedes-Benz vehicles. Found on tramp-a-benz.com, it’s a lovely idea that apparently the brand didn’t instigate and isn’t sponsoring, but has mentioned it on its Facebook page, with almost 3,000 “likes”. (What they are doing is courting Twitter users to race some of their cars in order to win a C-class). It’s a great story that most brands would be extremely envious of; unadulterated, unsolicited brand advocacy and evangalism. The wonderful NotCot site also pointed Zeitgeist to the brand’s Yuletide message, which seems to be exclusively online:

Justifying Luxury

“Luxury lies not in richness or ornateness but in the absence of vulgarity.” – Coco Chanel

If luxury is mostly defined by what it is not, then one can see how it faces an uphill battle in trying to attract the more cash-strapped among us, especially in economically turbulent times. A large part of a luxury brand’s assets are focussed on upselling to the shopper, but currently a brand has to work harder to justify its prestige (not to mention price tag). The following post looks at how some brands have responded by cultivating their image with top auteurs at the helm, while others have sought to bring the brand down to the masses.

Two of the biggest houses, Chanel and Gucci, both recently launched new ad campaigns to promote a new fragrance. Gucci first released a teaser trailer for it’s perfume, Guilty, which by all accounts went ‘viral’ before a 30-second spot went live on Facebook on August 12th, followed the next day it’s exhibition on TV. As Luxuo points out, what everyone is really waiting for though is the director’s cut of the commercial, which will be unveiled live September 12th at the MTV Video Music Awards. By the end of it, the campaign will have done a good job of building up audience anticipation and suspense. The shoot was directed by Frank Miller, the mind behind such films as “Sin City” and “300”, and the commercial’s aesthetics leave you in no doubt as to its author. The MTV VMA audience should dovetail nicely with the demographic Gucci is looking for with this particular product. As PSFK notes, the results could be mutually beneficial. Meanwhile Chanel, (recently branching out into surfing), has been mostly bombarding the cinema with its own ad for its own new brand of fragance, Bleu de Chanel. This advert was directed by the legend that is Martin Scorsese, whose crisp visuals are tinted blue and who can’t resist adding a Rolling Stones track to the background. It’s interesting to see both these powerful brands collaborating with famous / respected filmmakers in order to justify, endorse and build upon the image they are trying to perpetuate. The life shown through Miller’s and Scorsese’s lenses is an unattainable one.

Meanwhile, other brands have been seeking to do the reverse and making themselves somewhat more accessible, playfully or otherwise. Lanvin, one of the bastions of fashion, is reported by the New York Times to be doing a capsule collection for that bastion of mediocrity and crass capitalism, H&M, following similar collections by the likes of Matthew Williamson, Jimmy Choo and Karl Lagerfeld. Last year Lanvin produced a collection over a period of several months in collaboration with Acne Jeans. The latter brand helped make Lanvin more accessible (in that the synergised collection was cheaper than anything one might normally buy from Lanvin), but retained an esoteric air thanks to the jeans manufacturer’s relative anonymity (relative to H&M, anyway). What benefit does this brand dilution – for that is the only thing it can be described as – bring to the fashion house? Well it puts it on the radar of those 20-somethings who might not be able to purchase something from Lanvin outright on their current salary, but will be store it away for future consideration. Rather more cheekily, Issey Miyake recently opened a pop-up store in Tokyo, decked out not at all how you would expect. PSFK quotes,

“The overall concept derived from the Japanese convenience store, with its constant state of dynamic, fluid change… To highlight this association, the shop’s name is ‘24′, and its logo features the kind of stripes you might expect to find on the facade of a convenience store. The packaging, too, comes from food packaging.”

In this case then, Issey is taking it’s high-fashion image and poking fun at itself in its own retail environment. A dangerous move, but also an innovative one, with enough publicity to gain the attention of those fickle shoppers. It stands out from the more overt attempts at aspiration that Chanel and Gucci are creating, and perhaps this self-parody helps Miyake gains more fans than those who might otherwise be put off the more gilded edges of luxury, vulgar or no.

 

We Have (Green) Ignition

Shell and Renault might not leap to mind as producers of the most ‘green’ products in the market right now. Hence why both companies are trying to alter this perception by touting their so-called ‘green credentials’. In the past week, one brand has come off better than the other in managing these expectations.

Though unquestionably adept when it comes to social media – having in the past month launched their products on the latest incarnation of the Sims game, as well as the ubiquitous Facebook integration – Renault has fallen foul of the ASA twice over a period of five weeks. At the end of March, seventeen people complained that the company’s strapline for their new electric car, that it was a ‘zero-emissions vehicle’, was a fallacy, as it “did not take the full life cycle of the vehicle into account… the ASA adjudicated that if the car was charged using energy sourced from the UK’s national grid, CO2 emissions would be produced as a result.” The article also mentions a new set of codes by Defra meant to combat ‘greenwashing’ tactics. Yesterday, Brand Republic reported the ASA had banned a second Renault advert, when one person complained “it was using French rather than UK figures to make the claim that one of its electric cars reduces CO2 emissions by least 90%.” The ASA concluded the ad was “misleading”.

Where Renault has stumbled, Shell has not, with those wonderful JWT minds producing a simple but visually engaging advertisement that immediately speaks to the relative cleanliness and quality of its fuel.

One luxury brand not usually associated with such serious things like sustainability is Aston Martin. But then neither was BMW before it recently unveiled its prototype electric car (see headline picture). Campaign magazine reported yesterday that the manufacturer “is looking for an agency to handle the launch advertising for its Cygnet city car”. The project is being managed in conjunction with Toyota, based on that company’s iQ car. “a large proportion of Aston Martin drivers also own a smaller car, such as a Mini or smart car, which they use for their inner-city commutes or to do the shopping. Reports suggest that the Cygnet will cost around £30,000 and feature a low-emission economical engine.” It’s an interesting decision. Although one might initially blanche at the idea of Aston Martin producing a more economical car, as the above quotation illustrates, it is in fact very on-brand. In this case, why sell to half of the consumer’s automobile product purchase, when you can sell to it all? The model will, initially, only be available to those that already own an Aston Martin.

Zeitgeist is most pleased to see efforts being taken by the those industries with an environmentally questionable past to prepare for a cleaner future. Moreover, who’d have thunk it, but electric cars can be cool and fast (although UK hybrid and electric sales are unfortunately slipping). It’s clear from Renault’s example though that people won’t tolerate a greenwash. Perhaps the open-source project “c,mm,n“, will help.

Campari’s breath of fresh air

Zeitgeist has a bit of a soft spot for that lovely libation that is Campari. The bitter spirit is hardly known at all in this country, despite a push in years past both here and in the US with some excellent print ads (see above). Last week, Zeitgeist went into a very respectable sports club to ask at the bar for a Campari and orange, only to be greeted with incredulity by the ingenue of a bartender serving him. Campari is not only not cool in this country, it is not known.

It was refreshing then to hear of a little activation campaign in Milan – home of Davide Campari – that featured the “aperitivo three ways 1. Straight drink 2. Solid form – alcoholic jellies moulded like italian design classics 3. Gas – a vast breathable cloud of Campari.” The wonderful blog NOTCOT has the lowdown. It’s great to see a brand creating a cool event around appreciating the product in a different way, not just sponsoring some party at some club-of-the-week.