autocratic for the people.

There seems to be an increase in the number of "challenging" car designs lately. Perhaps born of renewed consumer interest in aesthetics and design, more likely a side effect of outsourcing-bred commodotization across various auto parts supplier markets, it's come to be recognized that polarizing designs are an excellent way to promote both brand image and conversation in general (which is great, since word-of-mouth advertising is the marketing orgasm du jour). And that's nice, to a point, because if consumers are paying attention to design, then brands can justify hiring design and humanities people to lead their desperate attempts to stand out in the shockingly incestual automotive business.

Unfortunately, because the motives behind the corporate interest in aesthetics are less than pure, the buying public is forced to endure designs intended not to provoke positive reactions, necessarily, but rather to provoke strong reactions period. BMW in particular has certainly received a lot of press regarding their questionable styling direction, and there's no particular reason to believe that they really think they're making beautiful cars. Perhaps they're instead making expensive conversation pieces. Even if that isn't explicitly the plan, we can be sure that it's at least crossed their minds.

If we accept that out-there industrial design is a good way to get consumers talking about "the brand" (eg, Ford) in abstract terms, as opposed to simply "the car" (the Ford Explorer) in concrete terms, then the Crazy-Ass Automotive Styling Explosion of 2001-5 makes a fair bit of sense. And indeed, most higher-margin, premium brands are attempting to tiptoe away from their more mainstream, risk-averse corporate overlords by piling on the jewelry and pouting for the camera. A strong brand image can clearly drive sales even in the face of severe product issues, so it makes sense to put lipstick on that pig if it raises awareness of the overall brand.

The problem with taking a brand's styling in a new direction is that it tends to piss off the, you know, existing customers. Styling is a double-edged sword like that: as much as it communicates fresh new values and a revised, hip sensibility, it also signals that the old message is on its way out. And that's a problem, because repeat buyers are valuable, and bad things can happen when they get unhappy.

So far, the solution to this quandry seems to be to retain a few beloved "heritage" styling cues across different brand reinventions. An example of one that works is the BMW twin-kidney grille (1933, 2006); an example of one that doesn't is the Nissan truck grille (1990, 2006).

Heritage styling cues are particularly important to the tuner arms of the German manufacturers, because they give fairly subtle body treatments to their cars, and the cues tend to be unique and critical to distinguishing the hopped-up cars from the normal ones. In the mid-90s AMG adopted an outward-splitting front valence and five-spoke wheels, and BMW M made the quad exhaust and hood vents its trademarks. These cues grew in prestige as the brands did, and became iconic symbols in their own right.

So, as you'd expect, when the Crazy-Ass Styling Explosion of 2001-5 took off, a popular maneuver was to adopt these prestige styling cues as one's own, often with ridiculous results. The most egregious single example, I believe, is Pontiac's, with runners-up Nissan and, inexplicably, Audi.

The situation we're amusingly left with now is that most manufacturers have just finished revising their model lines to fit with their outrageous, hey-talk-about-me new looks, only to find that their traditional styling cues, the ones with true heritage that resonate with existing customers, have been ripped off by the very brands they've been trying to get away from. They've ended up both throwing out their loyal following and losing the uniqueness of their brand heritage -- the very two things they were attempting not to do.

posted by avixe @ 11:57 PM