Edward's Corner

or perhaps you could call it: understanding your brand and growing a pair large enough to do something with it. As Seth Godin would say, “when others zig, you zag”.

In this case, Rolls Royce understood what Mercedes did not. In 2001 with the introduction of the Phantom, it went bold. Just 8 years after the introduction of the Maybach, Mercedes is going home. Enjoy filling the space with an ultra-luxurious S-Class (which is really all the Maybach ever was).

Lets set the players straight in this story just before these two models entered the market in ‘01 & ‘02 respectively

Rolls Royce: Historical value, good sales, and a known brand (primarily through super-rich country clubs, historical car shows, and rappers)

Mercedes: Consumer luxury car from Germany, huge sales across many makes/models, and driven by tons of very wealthy, moderately wealthy, and even wanna-be wealthy people. I mean seriously…$250 lease on a C-class. thanks but i’ll take something faster, more reliable, and not entry level. (Acura/Infiniti/Lexus)

I’ll mention Bentley the day they quite producing meaningless cars that no one cares about, and they come to understand that they’re in the market of building ultra-luxury MUSCLE cars. Until then, great, bring on the bland onslaught of Arnages and Continentals. (oh PS Bentley, speaking of Continentals, you got your ass handed to you in design by the Infiniti G35 coupe a few years ago)

That being said, the year is 2001. Rolls Royce came out with the Phantom to a bunch of critics screaming “sacrilège”! But they stood by their decision and did something completely bold and daring.

It was huge, boxy, and screamed “I WANT TO BE SEEN”. It is exactly what their market expected but couldn’t say without sounding pretentious and/or materialistic. RR delivered on the money, and now they’re rolling in it. If they had gone conservative like the previous 20-30 years, they would have slowly faded into oblivion. (which Bentley is doing very well at direction wise)

In comes bloated & pretentious Mercedes. “we know luxury”, and “we’ve been working on this program for years”! We introduce…not a Mercedes, but the MAYBACH! *reveal super luxurious S-class look-a-like*

Epic Fail.

You can’t expect to come out with an entirely new brand, and rely on the differentiator being ultimate customer service in selecting tapestries and types of wood. It simply isn’t a scalable solution, and wont let you penetrate the market with one simple, bold, and original direction & design (much like the apple iphone).

Do one thing, and do it very well.

This is why the Phantom will continue untouched until 2016 before it gets a major redesign, and Mercedes will go back to hammering television viewers with black and white commercials of progressively ugly cars passing by iconic cars of their past. It is exactly where they belong.

The irony behind all of this is that BMW was most likely behind the decision of producing the Phantom, considering they purchased Rolls Royce in the late 90’s. Talk about an indirect slap to the face from BMW to Mercedes.

Congrats to Rolls Royce on this one. A symbol to all that is wrong in the world we live in. Materialism!

-E