SwelledHead.com

If you have to tell people its cool…

It’s had its day now, but the once achingly fashionable St Martin’s Lane Hotel in London (that of Light Bar fame) understood that coolness needs no signpost. Those in the know breezed through the revolving doors with confidence, while the rest of us looked at the nameless exterior and wondered why the curtains/drapes didn’t meet the floor. It was with some incredulity then, that I ingested the news that online travel agent, Opodo, is “officially cool”.

The company has been listed by the UK’s self-appointed CoolBrands Council, joining a list of other hip brands such as Audi, Diesel, Guinness and Playstation. Coolness is an attribute many brands covet, but I doubt it’s something that can be bestowed, like a knighthood or honorary degree. If a brand is determined to be cool by some council and an online poll, then you can bet your boots the real fashionistas will have long since moved on.

To enter into a debate about the definition of cool is more than likely to end in disagreement (though feel free to air your views below). Personally, I tend to regard coolness as applying to something that’s not only outstandingly good and genuinely unique, but also that this thing remains largely undiscovered by the bourgeoisie, let alone the proletariat. It’s that rare thing about which you can feel rather self-satisfied, smug in the knowledge that only a few are in on the secret.

That’s certainly not the case with the brands listed by the CoolBrands Council. Coca-Cola, msn, Nokia and Prêt a Manger are all perfectly nice in their own way, but does using their products or services really make you feel all that special? You and ten million others.

Perhaps then, there’s another definition of cool that better applies in these cases. The CoolBrands Council’s own qualifiers are that the brand must be “original, innovative, authentic, unique and stylish”. You could argue the case for and against these attributes with those brands I’ve picked on here, but as exemplars of product/service quality and consistency of brand message, it’s fair to define these CoolBrands listed brands as cool.

All the same, it seems to emasculate the notion when one has to shout about it. And be warned, coolness is a fickle beast; anything less than substantive that finds its way onto a pedestal is set up for a fall.

PC World makes a “strippo” of Dell

It’s rare to see any firm attempt comparative advertising in Britain, but PC World (a UK-wide chain of computer stores) has done just that in an attempt to resist the hegemony of Dell. A recent trip down the high street to buy myself a new laptop revealed PC World’s in-store, side-by-side comparison of why you’d be crazy to buy from its online competitor.

Before I describe what I saw, let me take a moment to explain what makes this so momentous. If you’re reading this in the US, ads that stack the benefits of one product or service against the other won’t be anything unusual. In the UK however, such practices are almost non-existent. When living in the US, my British disposition was taken aback by commercials and print ads for cars that routinely contrasted facts about horsepower, space and amenities.

Looking at the website of the UK’s Committee of Advertising Practice, our comparative advertising rules don’t look too severe. It’s basically just common sense about not being misleading, comparing like for like, not discrediting and so forth. I can’t imagine the US regulations are very different, so the disparity must be due to cultural factors.

That makes a lot of sense. It goes against the grain in Britain to overtly size oneself up against the competition. In this status conscious nation, an assessment measures not only what can be observed, but also what can be instinctively absorbed or assumed. When it comes to almost commoditised goods, like computers and cars, such time-honoured ways of gauging which is best become less useful. Car manufacturers attempt, often successfully, to defy reason with branding. Lack of heritage and a woeful absence of product differentiation have made this more difficult in the computer world.

Of course Americans are as swayed by branding as the British, but with a more direct culture few feel as uncomfortable with a candid weighing up of the facts. (This can trip up US executives selling overseas, who though they may have what is genuinely the best product on the market, lose to an inferior competitor that has paid more attention to matters such as expected formalities and relationship building.)

So, back to the PC World ad. What was striking about this rare British example of comparative advertising was that it went straight for the jugular of Dell’s business model. If you’ve ever bought a computer from Dell you’ll understand what I mean. Its advertising and direct mailings quote impressive offers, but go to the website to select the machine and you’re confronted with a long list of optional extras. Most you’ll not need, but some seem pretty indispensable. The result, once you’ve specced up, is a price that’s significantly greater than what drew you to Dell in the first place.

That’s not to say Dell’s prices end up being unreasonable – usually far from it. What PC World’s marketing has cleverly done is draw attention to the unpleasant notion of hidden costs. Its in-store posters plainly state, and list, that what Dell prices as options, it includes. It’s like those car ads in the US, where one manufacturer compares its generously-specced base model with the “strippo” of its competitor. Factor in the extras and that low sticker price is suddenly less attractive.

That such a minor campaign can stand out from the marketing miasma is remarkable. It’s far too early to say that this could be the start of a change in British advertising practices, but it’s certainly got SwelledHead thinking. Britons should probably expect more of this in the future.

A rare niche in the US car market

It was hardly surprising to read that Volkswagen is to pull its luxury saloon/sedan from the US market. Pitiful sales figures are a clear sign from consumers that the Phaeton is just too much car for the nameplate. And VW’s failure to understand its own brand is truly astonishing.

It’s a lesson the firm should have learned with the Passat W8. While a nice enough car, it too had difficulty attracting interest at a premium price point. Unlike other European brands (BMW, Mercedes, Jaguar, Audi) which have been able to charge higher prices for their 8-cylinder cars, VW’s position as Audi’s lesser brand seems to have placed a ceiling on what it can charge.

It’s hard to understand why VW would push itself towards an area of the market where there are much fewer car sales. Instead of embracing two-tier branding (i.e. Toyota/Lexus, Nissan/Infiniti), VW has pushed to compete with its higher-priced sibling. This has created confusion in the US marketplace as to what the brand stands for. Ideally, it should be value-priced German engineering. Indeed, as the only moderately priced full-line European brand, VW is looking at a segment it could call its own.

In car-mad America, finding a niche like this is a rare and valuable prize. All the other European makers present in the US market are positioned as luxury brands and, unlike in their home markets, have generally preferred not to offer smaller models. With a strong reputation, low price point and no direct competition, this is an opportunity VW should leap upon.

Maybe it already has. Take this except from a recent article in The Scotsman: The withdrawal of Phaeton, which everybody outside VW Group's close-knit product-planning committee knew would fail, may be an indication that common sense is starting to return to Wolfsburg. Wolfgang Bernard, head of VW worldwide, and Adrian Hallmark, the newly appointed executive vice-president of VW America (ironically sent there last month from Bentley) have taken stock. They have finally admitted: "We are a volume producer; let's go in this direction, beginning with the US market, where we are losing a lot of money.”

If a mass market strategy in the US can work for VW, there’s theoretically no reason why it couldn’t for other European marques. The problem has been that, away from the premium brands, no maker has ever produced a model range that has lasting appeal for US consumers. Alfa Romeo, Rover, Peugeot, Renault and Citroën have all tried, but any successes have generally been short lived and none remain there today. The exceptions that prove the rule are Volvo and Saab. Now under US ownership, these too are developing as luxury brands.

Yet, if VW can make a play of the niche it should rightly inhabit, others European brands could follow. SwelledHead’s money is on Peugeot. From the 307 upwards, the proportions and style of the range is largely appropriate. In fact, the new 407 Coupé looks almost made for the US. It goes without saying that large 6 or 8-cylinder petrol/gasoline engines would be expected, but with a strong diesel engine range Peugeot could gain additional success by defining itself as the environmentalists’ choice. Diesel fuel is becoming more popular in the US as it shakes off its penny-pinching image and sells itself on politically correct green(er) credentials.

Gaining traction in what is a fiercely competitive sector is undeniably a major challenge, but with GM and Ford both struggling the US automotive is witnessing some major changes. Toyota and Honda have gained massively more share and other Japanese and Korean brands are echoing this success. Most European brands remain irrelevant to the US, but with the right marketing Peugeot could join VW to share in a niche that marques from other continents cannot occupy.