General 500 by Gucci in Greece

[RobinPJ]

Fiat did not do this to make money they are making enough money from the standard fiat 500! They are just doing this to have some fun = ), like most special edition cars!


They have enough money not to worry about how well the Fiat 500 Gucci does, in fact if no one orders they dont build so they really dont lose that much at all = ). In fact i am sure the R&D consisted of some guy at Gucci drawing something on a notepad and then showing it to Fiat! And A few demo cars wont bankrupt them!
A good excuse to have some fun with Gucci!

No. doing a tie up like this with a global brand like Gucci would not be fun. It would be a pain in the backside.

And car companies are controlled by accountants, not comedians. This car was never designed for fun - it was designed to make money, either directly or indirectly (through halo affect or even just publicity).

 

[Chrisilda]

I don't think to be available in 2 or 3 y!! It will be discontinued soon!
Important to mention that the black jack failed in the greek market too!

 

[Chrisilda]

Are you kidding me Ahmett? I totally agree with maxi! Cars are not built for fun - There is not even a single product which is produced for fun! These actions aim for satisfied customers and PROFIT!

 

[306maxi]

I happen to like the bydiesel. I think it appeals to men.
The Gucci - I would be one of exceptions on here and quite like it . Although I would probably take the stripe off that goes around the car. I certainly wouldn't pay the premium that they're asking for it and would wait for 2-3 years for the price to 'normalise'.

There's no doubt that some people do like the special edition 500's. My wife and her mum liked the byDiesel for instance, though i'm not sure the wife actually wanted to buy one, she just thought it was alright.

I just think Fiat have gone the wrong way with their special editions. I can think of a few really desireable special edition cars in the last 20 years and none of them has ever had a fashion tie up.
Impreza RB5 (Richard Burn edition basically)

Impreza Series McRae

Lancia Delta Blue Lagos

All of these are fairly well sought after and the differences from the standard models were usually just different interiors and exterior colours. Simple is best and all 3 look better for the relative restraint which has been shown. The fact that the numbers of byDiesel byGucci editions are only limited to the amount of people who will buy them also limits their desirability.

There have only ever and will only ever be, 215 Blue Lagos Inter's, 199 Series McRae's and 444 RB5's. This makes them significantly more desirable than a byGucci which there could be thousands of.

I think that Fiat have just gone the wrong way about selling really expensive special edition models.

 

[ahmett]

Are you kidding me Ahmett? I totally agree with maxi! Cars are not built for fun - There is not even a single product which is produced for fun! These actions aim for satisfied customers and PROFIT!

Nope i disagree they didnt make it as a profit they knew it wouldnt sell that much. Besides every car they sell it makes a profit i am sure so its not a problem even if they dont sell any because they build to order!
It was just some fun with Gucci and maybe the managers at Fiat got some free Gucci clothing with it = ) Seriously fiat is a huge company they did this for some advertising with Gucci, not for some profits. Sometimes its good to make special editions change things up a bit and have fun while you are are it. They are Italian after all! You would never expect the Germans to make an Audi Hugo Boss Edition!

Think of it as a marketing technique to show the coolness of Italy! Who knows maybe the govt gave them some tax breaks for promoting italy!

 

[306maxi]

Nope i disagree they didnt make it as a profit they knew it wouldnt sell that much. Besides every car they sell it makes a profit i am sure so its not a problem even if they dont sell any because they build to order!
It was just some fun with Gucci and maybe the managers at Fiat got some free Gucci clothing with it = ) Seriously fiat is a huge company they did this for some advertising with Gucci, not for some profits. Sometimes its good to make special editions change things up a bit and have fun while you are are it. They are Italian after all! You would never expect the Germans to make an Audi Hugo Boss Edition!

Think of it as a marketing technique to show the coolness of Italy! Who knows maybe the govt gave them some tax breaks for promoting italy!

of course they made a profit! How much does it cost to put a couple of stripes on a car, a different set of seat covers and some special seatbelts?

 

[RobinPJ]

Nope i disagree they didnt make it as a profit they knew it wouldnt sell that much. Besides every car they sell it makes a profit i am sure so its not a problem even if they dont sell any because they build to order!
It was just some fun with Gucci and maybe the managers at Fiat got some free Gucci clothing with it = ) Seriously fiat is a huge company they did this for some advertising with Gucci, not for some profits. Sometimes its good to make special editions change things up a bit and have fun while you are are it. They are Italian after all! You would never expect the Germans to make an Audi Hugo Boss Edition!

Think of it as a marketing technique to show the coolness of Italy! Who knows maybe the govt gave them some tax breaks for promoting italy!

You are the CEO of one of the best known and most high regarded brands and trade marks in the world - Gucci.

You spend millions of euros every year both protecting your brand (by prosecuting counterfeit manufacturers, opposing infringing trad marks and suing parallel importers)and promoting it in the market (paying celebrities to wear your products and advertising).

The chairman of Fiat phones you up and says "Hey, we think it would be a real laugh to make a Gucci edition of our car! Is that ok? Oh, and can we have some free clothes please for doing you this favour?"

I don't think so.

 

[306maxi]

You are the CEO of one of the best known and most high regarded brands and trade marks in the world - Gucci.

You spend millions of euros every year both protecting your brand (by prosecuting counterfeit manufacturers, opposing infringing trad marks and suing parallel importers)and promoting it in the market (paying celebrities to wear your products and advertising).

The chairman of Fiat phones you up and says "Hey, we think it would be a real laugh to make a Gucci edition of our car! Is that ok? Oh, and can we have some free clothes please for doing you this favour?"

I don't think so.

Agreed.

It all reminds me of a thread about 10 years ago on a motorsport forum. There was talk of Skoda quitting the WRC at the end of the season due to lack of funds (they ended up doing so) and one young man from New Zealand, Cameron his name was, said that he would get together and organise a sausage sizzle to raise money for them so they could stay. We're talking a sport which costs 10's of millions of pounds to run a team in over a season and he was going to raise money by having a charity bbq

I'm sure he was only 14 or something at the time, but I wasn't even remotely that naive when I was that age!!!!!

 

[Chrisilda]

Nope i disagree they didnt make it as a profit they knew it wouldnt sell that much. Besides every car they sell it makes a profit i am sure so its not a problem even if they dont sell any because they build to order!
It was just some fun with Gucci and maybe the managers at Fiat got some free Gucci clothing with it = ) Seriously fiat is a huge company they did this for some advertising with Gucci, not for some profits. Sometimes its good to make special editions change things up a bit and have fun while you are are it. They are Italian after all! You would never expect the Germans to make an Audi Hugo Boss Edition!

Think of it as a marketing technique to show the coolness of Italy! Who knows maybe the govt gave them some tax breaks for promoting italy!

Ahmett i'm not THAT BIG but I'm still a small marketing professional and i assure you (i work for a very big multinational company) nothing is made or produced for fun! I'm not saying that the profit would be much - but this is why we made forecasts and adjust production units. There are not marketing techniques for coolness! Gucci contributes to Fiat and vice versa just for profit! Just for some extra units sold and that's all!
What would be interesting to me is to find out all these researches that have been conducted and lead to the conclusion that this car would be considered as favorable and likely to buy from the target market! But please lets not mention again that professionals spend hours of work in order to come up with the a product which aims for... FUN!
It's like Bosch to decide to launch an impact drill with Swarovski elements just for FUN! This doesn't make any sense.
If a company wants to create this COOL image for the public then there are 1 million other things to do but not to produce a product!

 

[Chrisilda]

You are the CEO of one of the best known and most high regarded brands and trade marks in the world - Gucci.

You spend millions of euros every year both protecting your brand (by prosecuting counterfeit manufacturers, opposing infringing trad marks and suing parallel importers)and promoting it in the market (paying celebrities to wear your products and advertising).

The chairman of Fiat phones you up and says "Hey, we think it would be a real laugh to make a Gucci edition of our car! Is that ok? Oh, and can we have some free clothes please for doing you this favour?"

I don't think so.

+1. Robin where are you?

 

[RobinPJ]

... right here agreeing with you ...

 

[Avas]

Ahmett i'm not THAT BIG but I'm still a small marketing professional and i assure you (i work for a very big multinational company) nothing is made or produced for fun! I'm not saying that the profit would be much - but this is why we made forecasts and adjust production units. There are not marketing techniques for coolness! Gucci contributes to Fiat and vice versa just for profit! Just for some extra units sold and that's all!
What would be interesting to me is to find out all these researches that have been conducted and lead to the conclusion that this car would be considered as favorable and likely to buy from the target market! But please lets not mention again that professionals spend hours of work in order to come up with the a product which aims for... FUN!
It's like Bosch to decide to launch an impact drill with Swarovski elements just for FUN! This doesn't make any sense.
If a company wants to create this COOL image for the public then there are 1 million other things to do but not to produce a product!

Gucci adds some of its magic on FIAT. Fiat pays some million dollars to promote 500. Gucci is promoted and gets access to all FIAT resellers. 500 is becoming a fashion item and that's FIAT decision. So adding more brands in the feature wouldn't surprise me. Even if they don't sell a lot, new clients are visiting FIAT to check the new fashion item. I agree; the won't buy the super duper Gucci but they could look at Pop and buy it. That's how they steal some of this "magic" from Gucci...

And, with money in their pockets - they buy a gucci bag to get even...



I don't think marketing people are thinking only about cost/sales. Branding and new market share are important too.

Not to mention that all of us are buying a small piece from the past, not just a car. An Italian song, the smell of garlic and basilico and an old movie ...

Maybe there are cheaper or better cars but marketing made FIAT 500 my choice.

 

[loveshandbags]

Gucci adds some of its magic on FIAT. Fiat pays some million dollars to promote 500. Gucci is promoted and gets access to all FIAT resellers. 500 is becoming a fashion item and that's FIAT decision. So adding more brands in the feature wouldn't surprise me. Even if they don't sell a lot, new clients are visiting FIAT to check the new fashion item. I agree; the won't buy the super duper Gucci but they could look at Pop and buy it. That's how they steal some of this "magic" from Gucci...

And, with money in their pockets - they buy a gucci bag to get even...



I don't think marketing people are thinking only about cost/sales. Branding and new market share are important too.

Not to mention that all of us are buying a small piece from the past, not just a car. An Italian song, the smell of garlic and basilico and an old movie ...

Maybe there are cheaper or better cars but marketing made FIAT 500 my choice.

I can relate to the 'buying a small piece from the past' - hence the number of 'mature' buyers. It will interesting if this translates into lower cost of ownership with good re-sale values.

Now that the 500 has been released on the 'world stage' I reckon we will see a lot more of these 'special' models. Some coverage below of what's happened to the Cadallic along the lines of 'woman know what they want design ideas' in the development of a special edition. Then a car designer from GM admits to taking a lot of his inspiration from the fashion world. The difference between a wrong car purchase as against buying the wrong pair of shoes is that it's hard to hide a car at the back of 'garage'
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/medialink/1217-cars-and-fashion-hit-the-runway-video.htm

 

[Chrisilda]

I don't think marketing people are thinking only about cost/sales. Branding and new market share are important too.


Maybe there are cheaper or better cars but marketing made FIAT 500 my choice.

I really don't know who have told you that.....
Branding by definition aims to capture a place in consumer's mind because of it's design, characteristics, name etc. The upper goal of branding is to attract and retain customers (in order to be a customer you should buy something). Obviously, this has nothing to do with fun as Ahmett said or image (There are some PR professionals for this)
Moreover, market share could not occur without sales therefore our main priority is cost and sales.
Regarding what you said about attracting prospect customers at the dealership it may be true but not in this case. If they wanted that there are many other things do than designing and producing a new edition.

All of those above and below the line marketing activities that lead you to the end purchase (your fiat) have a real budgeted cost. 500 byGucci is a brand and in order to sustain its creation and presence it should make some profit which should be considerably more than the costs occurred. (design, production, distribution, advertising, sales promotion etc)

This is the business world!

 

[Chrisilda]

In more simple words... If the 500 byGucci doesn't sell the units required then Fiat will make a loss.

 

[306maxi]

Chrisilda, I completely agree. The end result of everything that Fiat does is to make more of a profit.

 

[ahmett]

Ok marketing experts we will agree to disagree! I will close with the statement that sometimes companies do marketing at a loss to reveal something special or expose the brand, either for future market share or just for fun = )

I am not saying whether fiat made or lost money from this Gucci thing, but I do know that they did this as a fun excercise without worrying too much about profit/loss margins since in the big picture, they are making money with or without the Gucci and they are not relying on this specific Gucci model in their profit and loss calculations.

 

[306maxi]

Ok marketing experts we will agree to disagree! I will close with the statement that sometimes companies do marketing at a loss to reveal something special or expose the brand, either for future market share or just for fun = )

I am not saying whether fiat made or lost money from this Gucci thing, but I do know that they did this as a fun excercise without worrying too much about profit/loss margins since in the big picture, they are making money with or without the Gucci and they are not relying on this specific Gucci model in their profit and loss calculations.

Why do they expose the brand? TO MAKE MONEY

 

[Chrisilda]

No maxi, they do it for fun! lol

I'm writing a proposal to Bosch Germany including my brilliant idea about this impact driller with the Swarovski elements. Of course i will thoroughly explain that it would be just for fun.

(If i get fired you will know the reason)

Moreover, i'm thinking about calling the Fiat chairman and tell him "Hey, I know that you spent hundreds of thousands for this Gucci thing just for fun, would it be ok to give me some money... you know.. for fun!

 

[Chrisilda]

Ok marketing experts we will agree to disagree! I will close with the statement that sometimes companies do marketing at a loss to reveal something special or expose the brand, either for future market share or just for fun = )

I am not saying whether fiat made or lost money from this Gucci thing, but I do know that they did this as a fun excercise without worrying too much about profit/loss margins since in the big picture, they are making money with or without the Gucci and they are not relying on this specific Gucci model in their profit and loss calculations.

Ahmett loss may happen but not in purpose... I would like to know what the Financial and Controlling dpt of Fiat will say about this...