Where the Road Meets the Runway

The name tags on the front-row seats lining the runway were the first clues that this was no ordinary fashion show. Rockers Steven Tyler of Aerosmith and Deborah Harry of Blondie, actor Damon Wayans and assorted B-level TV stars filled seats normally occupied by New York’s super-rich and other followers of high fashion.

But perhaps the most unusual guests at Betsey Johnson’s fashion show last week were the new models--the Mercedes-Benz car models. The show, held in the bowels of a West Side Mercedes dealership, introduced a new series of specially designed cars and Johnson’s fall collection.

Mercedes-Benz is the latest auto company to create an alliance with a fashion designer. A year ago, General Motors Corp. signed a three-year, nearly $4-million deal to be the biggest sponsor of New York’s Fashion Week, the quarterly men’s and women’s fashion shows held here. As part of another program, GM vehicles, specially designed by BCBG’s Max Azria, Vivienne Tam, Joseph Abboud and other designers, were showing up on runways and in print and TV advertisements.

Behind all the glitz and hype is an effort to reach out and connect with potential women car buyers. While the actual dollars being spent on fashion tie-ins amount to only a few million--GM alone spent $1.4 billion on advertising in 1998, the car companies are hoping to ride these fashion promotions onto the pages of magazines read by women.

Car makers now understand that women have extraordinary influence over car purchase decisions, but they don’t respond to old-fashioned and sexist advertisements, or displays at auto shows.

Women are the principal drivers of nearly half the new cars and of more than a quarter of new pickups, sport-utility vehicles and minivans. Overall, women drive 40% of all cars and light trucks combined, according to the automotive research firm J.D. Power & Associates.

“The question is how hard are they [women] to influence,” said Maryann N. Keller, an auto analyst with Furman Selz. “Ironically, women have a greater impact on what is bought in the market than men.”

With that kind of clout, no wonder auto makers are more attentive to women. High-profile fashion shows fit nicely into the industry’s lifestyle marketing approach.

“What is more a fashion statement than a car?” asked Philip Guarascio, vice president of advertising and marketing at GM. “Cars are fashion.”

“Auto design is a fashion business,” explained Ron Hill, chairman of the transportation design department at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. The car industry, he said, is trying to entice women to get involved in automotive design. “What are the kinds of needs of women which are not being met?”

Back in the 1950s, Detroit sought to woo women with pink cars with matching umbrellas and rain boots, said Rose-Anne Moore, a director of the media, market and image group at J.D. Power.

In 1976, Ford Motor Co.’s Lincoln division launched its limited edition “Designer Series”--with interior and exterior colors selected by well-known fashion and jewelry designers such as Bill Blass, Cartier, Emilio Pucci, Hubert de Givenchy and Valentino.

But it has only been in the last 15 years that car manufacturers have advertised in women’s magazines, though they still spend more on male-oriented and general-interest publications.

GM began its relationship with New York fashion designers in 1993 when it became the exclusive auto sponsor of the fashion shows held in Bryant Park, along 6th Avenue. GM also is in its third year of a fund-raising program called Concept:Cure. Fashion designers customize selected GM cars that are offered as prizes or auctioned to raise money--$2.6 million so far--for breast cancer research and awareness.

“We were trying to get closer to women who were particularly fashion conscious and may not have been thinking about GM cars and trucks over the past couple of years,” Guarascio explained. “Our focus was to connect with women through things they care about.”

Mercedes-Benz teamed up with Johnson to launch a flashy new series it calls Designo, which will be available in special paint and interior color options on selected model-year 2000 cars. Mercedes was attracted to Johnson because of her traditionally bright color palette of pink, lemon yellow and acid green, and the upbeat tenor of her shows.

“She’s fun. She’s faddy and she’s fashionable,” said Jeffrey Negrin, department manager of presence marketing at Mercedes-Benz of North America.

Negrin’s job title reveals another element of the car-fashion partnership. “Presence” marketing is a cousin of sports and events marketing. Getting cars placed at fashion events helps to target a hard-to-reach audience of women and image makers. The idea is also to convey a glamorous, hip image onto an industry desperately in search of just that.

The auto makers hope their connection with the fashion shows will provide a conduit into the fashion press, which, in turn, will help them build credibility with female readers.

“They [editors] are in a fashion-forward industry where they understand our Designo products,” Negrin said. “In addition, they speak to everyone else who is our target. They are going to go back to their respective offices and write articles in every fashion magazine there is.”

If a few fashion editors at the shows happen to buy an electric-green Designo Mercedes, fine. They did, however, quietly express their confusion about efforts to connect the runway to the highway. Cars? In the middle of gridlocked Manhattan? At a women’s fashion show?

“I don’t think they [designers] are particular. It’s whoever they can get as sponsors,” said Lauren Ezersky, a writer for Paper magazine.

For Johnson, the Mercedes alliance may spark interest in her line, which has long passed its trend-setting days. The designer also benefits by having “a different backdrop for her collection,” said her spokesman, Isaac Joseph. The industrial feel of the Mercedes garage where the show was held intersected with her initial plans to find an industrial-looking space for her show.

“Together we are able to do a huge extravaganza,” Joseph said. And when the designer opens a new store on Melrose Avenue in March, Mercedes will help stage a benefit for a local charity in car-crazy L.A.

But asking New York editors to see a connection between the cars and Johnson’s collection could be a stretch. Her collection was designed independently of Mercedes. She said her influences came from “the vintagy-precious past . . . but with a goth-rock ‘n’ roll head . . . with a touch of Barbie.”

Ultimately, the auto and fashion connection may help the fashion industry more than it helps the auto industry, said Kurt Barnard, president of Barnard’s Retail Trend Report.

“Everybody knows GM. Association with an industrial powerhouse in America spells a great deal of recognition,” he said.

Not for everyone. Auto industry analyst Keller at Furman Selz had not heard of GM’s fashion week sponsorship, even though she works and lives in New York. Worse, she said, the setup of the GM partnership doesn’t make sense.

“The problem General Motors has is that General Motors is not a brand. People do not buy General Motors. They buy Pontiac, Saturn, Buick. And fashion week connotes high fashion, style, the avant-garde. Buick is not a fashionable brand, and it doesn’t pretend to be.”

There is hope, however, for future auto marketing opportunities derived from the looks revving up on the runways. As fashion continues to veer toward a sport-utility look of practical, high-performance clothes, so are car makers. Keller said the next big thing coming from the auto industry is the crossover, a hybrid of cars and trucks, not unlike a scaled-down sport-utility vehicle. It’s the thing to drive while wearing the latest look--sport-utility rubber-soled shoes and messenger bags.