It is no secret that BMW’s latest designs have not been well received everywhere, and the company has responded to criticism in atypical and almost indignant ways. There are many cars out there that can be described as visually polarized, but BMW’s constant self-defense, while rejecting critics as boomers even though many of your clients are actually boomers, it has been a strange and fascinating drama to watch on social media.
In their last defense, BMW design chiefs Adrian van Hooydonk and Domagoj Dukec spoke with Top Gear in an attempt to minimize, but also at the same time welcome, the reaction. To be honest, there is nothing explicitly wrong with most of what van Hooydonk and Dukec say here. A lot falls into the territory “you can’t please everyone ¯ _ (ツ) _ / ¯”.
Honestly, if you were in their shoes, what else could you really say? Especially when “Yeah, we kind of messed it up, right?” it’s not really an option.
Even so, Dukec’s justification is not particularly convincing, as it is based on this unspecified and unspecified desire to “stand out”.
“You can create something beautiful, and we also have cars that are just beautiful. But there are customers who, if you want to reach them, you have to stand out. You have to create something that is not aligned; maybe not like an ordinary car or an everyday product, but that’s exactly why. “
G / O Media can receive a commission
Of course, standing out seems like a challenge when you create a variety of almost indistinguishable crossovers of slightly different sizes and then launch them into a market populated by similarly structured offerings from your competitors. But you don’t necessarily have to shock or disappoint most of your audience to be remembered, especially when you have a rich heritage of beautiful, high-performance cars that were generally appreciated. The heel heel is completely self-directed and not easy to understand, at least from the outside.
Dukec continues to lose me even more with his next comment on the 4 Series in particular, the car that received the most contempt:
“Not all of our products receive the same criticism,” said Dukec. “You can see that in something as polarizing as the kidneys in Series 4, 20 percent of people are enjoying it. This fits the type of customer we seek.
This goes back to a percentage breakdown of how BMW sees its customers, classifying them with demographic labels as “elegant creators” and “expressive artists” – you know, real marketing stuff. But in no dimension can I see a 20% approval rating as a victory. I think the subtext here is that BMW is looking to woo an extremely demanding type of customer who wants to be seen as nervous, bold and interesting, a person whose confidence is derived from having a huge schnoz in front of their luxury sedan. I can’t help reading an air of superiority here too. If you don’t “understand”, you are simply not “elegant” or “expressive” enough to be BMW.
Between all this and the passive insults launched against his most passionate fans on Twitter, every time someone at BMW opens their mouths about design these days, it seems like it’s just going deeper. I really hate being that guy who comments wistfully how everything used to be so much better, and I desperately looked for something positive to say about the front-end treatment in the new series 4 and 7, or iX – but I can’t find it.
BMW has never seemed to be a brand concerned with attention before, which makes everything so strange. In any case, it seems that he is very concerned about this today and, to the credit of the company’s designers, he certainly found ways to stand out. Van Hooydonk reflects on the uproar with a favorable turn:
“It is really fantastic [if you have fans]. This means that you have people who not only buy your products, but also love what you do. Of course, if they love what you do, the minute you change, they may have a problem with that.
Remember: no matter what people say, they will only be disappointed in you because they love you. I think this is something that we can all benefit from if we take it seriously.