BMW cars are in the news. For all the wrong reasons.
Sanjiv Nanda, accused of killing people, while at the wheel of a BMW car in 1999 was convicted recently.
And in the past one month, two more BMW cars (a 3 series and a 7 series) have been involved in hit and run cases where three lives (all of them on two wheelers) were snuffed out.
The families of the victims have all my sympathies and the erring drivers have none.
While i was at it, i couldn't rein in my brand management student mind and launched a consumer behaviour and customer profiling research on people buying BMWs.
People in the know would recall, my final year research paper also was on Car brands in India. I wrote the paper because of my interest in cars & branding. And not the other way.
Anyway, a couple of days back, a friend in my car remarked at seeing a Mercedes E280 which was in front of our car while all of us were stuck in evening rush in one of the suburbs of New Delhi, "yeh mercedes waale, bechare kitna bach bach ke chalate hain gaadi."
I hadn't ever thought of that before but i did agree that i had never witnessed a rashly driven Mercedes. Not even the C-class or other small (in terms of physical dimensions) Mercedes cars.
That very evening we were watching gory pictures of a half smashed BMW with a gurgaon number plate, and fully smashed Bajaj Pulsar which was the ride of the unfortunate victims of the crash.
Without delving into much detail about my sources or methodology of research (because most of my comments here are coming from the gut), i'd want to think that typically a Mercedes customer is the one who has bought the car from money earned from a white business. Legitimate money. Wealth acquired by relative hard work or also passed down a generation.
The customer may also belong to a family which has been in relative comfort over the generations and the people are ones who have come to appreciate all things luxury. To appreciate craftsmanship.
This guy doesn't always think in terms of 0-100. He does however notice body roll or undulations on uneven roads. Noiselessness in the cabin rates higher on his checklist of a car purchase.
Over and above, he is buying into the three pointed star. Its his way of silently telling himself (and the world at large) that he has now what he deserved all along. And he has worked to be where he is.
While i flip through Mercedes ad campaigns over the years and across markets, by belief is strengthened further. The company also knows its customer rather well and hence the communication is also centred around the aura of the Mercedes.
However, the late entrant into the Indian premium luxury car market, the Bavarian Motor Works was already a sort of a brand for rich rebels. Even before it had a formal presence in the Indian car market, you could see second hand imports... M3s and M5s being run around on bombay roads with gay abandon. All of them self driven, by spoilt brats.
And now when it does have showrooms in Tier 1 cities, it sure is making sales at a brisk pace.
Why not? Delhi has a huge rush of nouveau riche families, who want to make more than a little noise about the wealth.
For some reason, it has to be more often than not, a Bee Emm Dabloo if not an Oddeee (Audi) to let the neighbours know.
Its even more fun, when i tell you that i have so much money that i dont give two hoots if my school going kid has some harmless (harmless for my son) fun on the beemdabloo. If something happens, we'll go and get another one.
I dont know if the company started out making engines for warplanes. Honestly i dont even care if it has a history or a legacy. But it sure goes fast. Faster than the neighbourhood Bunty's Sakoda (Škoda).
If this really is how the brand is being perceived, and if this is the profile of customers this German is after, the car will see difficult times even before it can say Achtung!
Its all good to be the ultimate driving machine, and showcase the pleasure of being involved with the car, the people at the helm will, sooner than later, have to emphasise safe driving.
This piece here is not a commentary on the quality of products offered by Mercedes or BMW. I have reserved my comments on the cars themselves. Here i have only tried to talk about the brand perception and profiled the current customer set for both brands in an Indian context.
