‘Me Decade’ Over? Don’t Tell Ferrari
Any marketer who honestly believes that conspicuous consumption is out--and restraint is in--didn’t make it to Beverly Hills over the weekend.
There was ostentatiousness at its grandest.
Three blocks of Rodeo Drive were closed so that Ferrari--the Italian maker of $100,000-plus sports cars--could display its 24-karat sheet metal to some of the wealthiest gawkers in L.A. Ferrari said it came to town to introduce its new $120,000 Spider convertible and, incidentally, to raise money for charity.
But clearly the grand show of 150 luxurious Ferraris on America’s main street for the rich was an effort to boost flagging North American sales. Included in the exhibit was the first Ferrari ever built--worth an estimated $22 million.
With such overt displays of wealth, the widely held notion that the excess of the 1980s has been somehow magically ousted by the moderation of the ‘90s is being increasingly questioned by a growing number of marketers and marketing experts. And they insist that such showiness is not just some kind of Hollywood aberration.
True, it is no longer unusual to find a Lexus or BMW idling next to you in the Price Club parking lot. But while many consumers have bought into the notion that the “Me Decade” is over, there are some savvy marketers who suspect that it has only been slightly rejiggered.
“Greed and fear are still the primary drives of Wall Street,” said Gerald Celente, director of the Trends Research Institute. “And Madison Avenue still finds these two vices very appealing--conventional wisdom notwithstanding.”
“Do the rich want to be seen as different in the 1990s versus the 1980s? The answer is, ‘no,’ ” said Samuel Craig, chairman of the marketing department at New York University. Despite all the talk about ‘90s austerity, he said, “luxury marketers must be careful not to do anything to demean the image of the products they are trying to sell.”
One objective of Ferrari’s Rodeo Drive hoopla was to be seen shoulder-to-shoulder with the likes of such upscale retailers as Cartier and Salvatore Ferragamo, said Luca Cordero Di Montezemolo, chairman of Ferrari in Italy. Said Montezemolo, “Ferrari is art.”
Ferrari is taking direct aim at the wealthy. And why not? Just two years ago, the Sultan of Brunei, among the world’s wealthiest men, purchased 15 Ferraris. But Ferrari sales in the United States have slipped--a bad sign for Ferrari, which sells almost as many cars in America as in Italy.
So the company is now targeting the estimated 200,000 Americans who earn more than $400,000 a year. Perhaps that is one reason that Ferrari sent dozens of Ferrari owners to a local car test track over the weekend--so they could thrill to the roar of their own engines.
“At Ferrari, we’re not just in the auto industry--we’re also in the luxury industry,” said Gian Luigi Longinotti Buitoni, president of Englewood Cliffs, N.J.-based Ferrari North America.
Ferrari does little advertising.
Other purveyors of luxury goods and their representatives are more overt.
Few agencies in the country are more closely aligned with the luxury industry than Team One Advertising, the El Segundo firm whose slogan is “Advertising to America’s Affluentials.”
Team One creates ads for such upscale clients as Lexus cars and Beechcraft-Starship, maker of $4-million personal aircraft. It also creates ads for Town & Country, the magazine aimed at some of the nation’s wealthiest consumers.
While the slogan, created with the firm’s founding in 1987, might sound like a 1980s relic, the agency’s president insists that he’s not about to hunt for some new, politically correct slogan for the ‘90s.
“It gives us an attribute and personality that’s valid,” said John Hirschboeck, president of the agency. “I think it’s important that you stand for something.”
No doubt Team One’s biggest client, Toyota’s upscale Lexus division, still stands for luxury.
And the ad agency continues to advertise Lexus as a luxury product--but these days, with a nod to the practical.
“We’re spending more time on the price part of the equation,” Hirschboeck said. One of the agency’s newest print ads for the $44,300 Lexus LS 400 notes: “Being extravagant was never so fiscally responsible.”
But prospective Lexus buyers are increasingly courted by the firm in upscale fashion. About 300 prospects were recently treated to a night at the San Francisco Opera. What’s more, no salesman phoned afterward. Instead, the opera-goers were simply sent elegant thank you notes.
Likewise, American Express has plans to increasingly pamper--on an individual basis--its gold and platinum card customers.
“We are speaking differently to our customers, but it’s not a ‘90s versus ‘80s issue,” said John Linen, president of American Express Travel Related Services. “Product focus is moving out, and a greater focus on relationship is moving in.”
For example, American Express platinum card clients were able to obtain much-sought-after Super Bowl tickets at face value through special travel packages put together by the company.
Even BMW, which so closely linked its image with the conspicuous consumption of the ‘80s, has backed off only ever so slightly from this positioning. In fact, when BMW recently reviewed ad agencies, the majority of the ad firms that it spoke with strongly urged BMW to retain its highfalutin ad slogan, “The ultimate driving machine.”
These days, BMW ads also remind consumers that better cars make for better drivers. The ‘90s focus is: “I want a luxury item not just for the status, but because it will enhance my life,” said Ann Zacarian, manager of marketing for BMW North America.
Some BMW customers can’t afford to buy as many expensive items right now, Zacarian said. But when it comes to their cars, she said, they mostly share this response: “I deserve it.”
Briefly . . .
The Los Angeles agency Mendelsohn/Zien Advertising has picked up the combined $5.4-million accounts for the Southern California and Bay Area BMW Dealer Assns. . . . The Los Angeles agency Stranger & Associates has won the estimated $3-million account for the Luxor Hotel & Casino, scheduled to open in Las Vegas in October, 1993. . . . International Communications Group of Los Angeles has picked up the $2-million media buying business for Los Angeles-based Frame-n-Lens. . . . Nelson & Gilmore, a Redondo Beach agency, has been handed the ad business for Los Suenos, a resort community in Costa Rica by Braemar Homes. . . . Despite Nissan’s financial headaches in Japan, executives at the auto maker’s U.S. division say they remain committed to their American ad agency, Venice-based Chiat/Day. . . . Advertising Age has named Details magazine as its “Magazine of the Year” for 1992. . . . More than 25 bus shelter posters created by the Los Angeles agency Ellis & Ross for the new Museum of Tolerance in West Los Angeles have been stolen--one of the largest local outdoor poster heists since the film “Batman.”
