Controversial BMW Design Is Punking You, And Won’t Stop, CEO Says.

Transportation Controversial BMW Design Is Punking You, And Won’t Stop, CEO Says. Michael Taylor Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Long experienced in auto journalism, Taylor is based in Italy.

Following New! Follow this author to stay notified about their latest stories. Got it! Oct 27, 2022, 05:22am EDT | New! Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin BMW Chairman Oliver Zipse has defended his company’s design strategy, insisting it sells cars. The .

. . [+] BMW 7 Series limousine is just the latest in a solid line of controversial BMW designs, but for every criticism, BMW seems to sell another car.

Photo: Michael Taylor Michael Taylor If you ever had the feeling BMW was punking people with its string of controversial designs, well, it turns out you were right. BMW is deliberately punking people to see their reactions and, importantly, leveraging those reactions to get more and more publicity, and more and more sales. And, BMW’s Chairman Oliver Zipse admitted in California last week, the controversy has become the plan.

”Of course it’s a plan, otherwise we wouldn’t do it,” Zipse said, during the launch of yet more controversial designs in the BMW 7 Series and i7 EV. “If you want to change design, any step into the future that is perceived as new will be controversial automatically. “There’s no such thing as a future-oriented design without controversy.

” “That’s the trick: to have controversy and the outcome is ‘I want to have it’ and ‘I like it’, and of course it’s a plan. ” The BMW M3 was leaked early and often to soften public opinion before the car was officially . .

. [+] launched, yet BMW Chairman Oliver Zipse inists controversy is a key part of the plan. getty Design experts and social media forums the world over have piled on critique after critique about modern BMW products, ranging from the saber-toothed M3/M4 twins, the awkward iX EV SUV, the X7, the new 7 Series and now even the XM V8 plug-in hybrid.

MORE FOR YOU The ‘Backsies’ Billionaire: Texan Builds Second Fortune From Wreckage Of Real Estate Empire He’d Sold NBA Players Association Names Que Gaskins President Of Marketing, Licensing Subsidiary The MLS Cup Playoffs Were Too Long 4 Years Ago. What Changed? Well, scorn is more like it, rather than criticism. But, Zipse all of these designs have done their job, even if they’re not on sale yet, because part of their job is to draw attention to BMW and the other part is to grow sales volumes.

Zipse implied BMW now uses calculated design strategies that both clothe their cars and deliver media and public attention via left-field designs, and it comes from the analysis BMW did after the much-pilloried E65 7 Series that shocked the luxury world in 2001. The E65 7 Series showed BMW the value of design controversy, garnering criticism around the world in . .

. [+] 2001, yet selling in greater numbers than its admired predecessor. Photo: BMW BMW Replacing the wonderfully elegant E38 7 Series, the E65 7 Series was smashed in public opinion – and there was a lot of public opinion, but outsold its predecessor anyway, by 343,073 cars to the 310,000.

But the E65 debate elevated the BMW’s name into the public sphere for years, for free, and Zipse believes that equates to sales. “I want controversy,” Zipse admitted. “If we don’t have controversy (in the early design process), I already know it’s too easy.

“In the early design if you do not have controversy, that’s the mistake you make. “Out of the controversy you get engagement. You get people thinking about it and thinking about alternatives.

” The softly spoken BMW board Chairman Oliver Zipse wants his cars’ designs to shout out loudly enough . . .

[+] to garner attention to the BMW brand. Photo by CHRISTOF STACHE/AFP via Getty Images AFP via Getty Images Yet nobody has followed BMW down the controversial-design path. Traditional foe Mercedes-Benz chose instead a more organic, smooth-surfaced approach, while Audi’s designs are conventional, apart from very large single-frame grilles.

Rising China is a hotbed of European design refugees, many of them from BMW, where they found the design direction too antagonizing. “We drove this morning through Palm Springs,” Zipse said, “And if you looked at all the other cars, they all look alike. They’re aerodynamically streamlined, there are no ugly cars any more.

They’re not great, but they’re not ugly cars. They look very much alike. “If you want to have modern, future-oriented design, you will automatically get controversy and of course we want that.

“That doesn’t mean people won’t buy it and of course we want to start a discussion about ‘what are they doing here?’. “We see a lot of that with the XM. There are a lot of discussions here, but almost everyone loves it.

” The BMW XM – the first stand-alone M car since the M1 – has garnered tremendous controversy, and . . .

[+] it’s controversy that Zipse embraces. Photo: Michael Taylor Michael Taylor Well, not “almost everyone” if social media responses are to be considered valid, and the XM V8 plug-in hybrid has been even more pilloried and mocked than the iX was, and the new 7 Series has already had more than its share of criticism. “Of course, some people think you’re nuts.

BMW always built this sporty limousine in the six cycles before,” Zipse countered. “Then you ask the customer and they say it’s a great car, but only for the driver. “After six generations, is that what you still want to hear? You want to be in that luxury segment and you always make the same mistake again? “There was controversy inside BMW and after we made that decision the controversy was over.

” The iX EV has become a touchstone for BMW’s controversial design strategy, wrapping a wonderful car . . .

[+] and a convincing interior in a body that’s difficult to warm to. Photo by TOBIAS SCHWARZ/AFP via Getty Images AFP via Getty Images But if BMW insists the rest of the world needs to catch up to its breakout designs, how could it ever know if it actually gets something wrong? Sales. Zipse’s main arbiter of design success or failure, is sales, but the difficulty with this approach is that BMW would only know this for sure when it was deep into the design of the replacement vehicle.

Zipse confirmed its designs will always be more conservative in the thicker slices of its sales, like the 3 and 5 Series, the X1, X3 and the X5, but he will continue to push the design harder on the more niche machinery. “When a car hits the road, it’s the end of a very long process. It’s the start for you guys but it’s the end for us.

“We start with design sketches many, many years earlier, and the decision for which design to go with is many years before. “Especially, the i7 is very unusual for BMW. You could say it’s much too big: it’s 5cm wider, 6cm higher, and only as a long version, with a big kidney grille.

“It will never be a mass market car. It will only be a super minority of people who will sit in that car. The majority of people will never sit in that car.

“It only must be appealing to the customers who are in that segment, not anybody else. ” BMW has also attracted criticism for not designing its existing and upcoming EVs to take advantage of the design possibilities freed up by smaller electric motors. Other companies have responded to the EV revolution by doing away with grilles altogether, bringing frunks or low-line noses into play where engines once sat, but not BMW.

“We don’t believe and we never believed that the drivetrain should dictate what a car should look like because it doesn’t depend on the drivetrain,” Zipse defended. “It (the design) depends on the customer taste, customer behaviour, functions they would like to have and that’s the foremost thing. “A drivetrain is necessary and important, but not THE most important thing when you create a car.

It’s customer needs, especially in that (luxury) segment. ” Follow me on Twitter . Check out my website .

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