Brand Marketing Gone Wild: Aston Martin and Ferrari

Recently Aston Martin launched a Toyota IQ as an Aston Martin. Aston Martin calls it the Cygnet. It is of my opinion that brand marketing and product placement for product awareness has reached an all time high (or low) with this Cygnet. We had Aston Martin tee shirts, bicycles (I remember reading about it sometime in the mid 1990s) and now we have an Aston Martin car that isn't really an Aston Martin.

Car manufacturers have begun to reinvent brand marketing whether we like it or not. Some time ago, in order to create brand awareness, car manufacturers like most large companies out there put their names and logos on simple stuff like tee-shirts, key chains, cheapo ball-point pens, mugs and notepads. Now, in the age of (too much) information it seems that these small and sometimes not-so-small brand awareness inducing items aren't good enough for supercar manufacturers like Ferrari and Aston Martin.

Now that Aston Martin has decided to sell an Aston Martin that is not an Aston Martin in the purest sense, this new marketing concept on brand marketing has basically blown to pieces the actual concept of what we think owning an Aston Martin is all about. It seems that an Aston Martin is no longer a super sports car. It is also a small city car that has an Aston like grill, leather seats, leather dash and some Aston Martin badges here and there. The Cygnet could be the first Aston Martin since 1950 that couldn't exceed 120mph. It is a caricature of the real thing. But then again, according to Aston Martin, it is the real thing. Confusing isn't it?

In fact this idea of selling a caricature of an Aston Martin is so Japanese. It is like buying a Mitsuoka Cute, which is a a Nissan March with a Jaguar MKII like grill placed on the front. But the thing is, it doesn't actually want to be a Jaguar, it just wants to pay homage to it. If it were a Jaguar, it would be called a Jaguar.

But what do you get when say Jaguar's new owners TATA decide to do exactly like what Aston Martin did with the Cygnet? Imagine TATA using its budget Nano car (above) as a base, slapping a chrome Jaguar grill, wrapping its seats with leather and put a leaping cat on the bonnet then calling it a Jaguar XJ Nana? Would that make it a brilliant exercise in brand awareness or something really blasphemous?

So is a Cygnet a real Aston Martin? Or just a reason to reduce the overall C02 emissions average in the Aston Martin car lineup, ergo a sellout by the brand?

Now aside from Aston, we have Ferrari. We have got Ferrari tee-shirts, perfumes, soft toys, shorts, shoes, key chains, wallets, pens (not the cheap ones but actual Italian fountain pen manufacturers), watches (by Panerai nowadays), luggage, soup bowls, mugs, lego sets, toy cars, baby car seats, prams; the list is endless. But now, not satisfied that their prancing horse logo has been plastered on nearly every type of product out there (aside from their beautiful cars) they have decided to open up a whole theme park called Ferrari World in the U.A.E.

But a theme park? I don't think riding a very fast roller coaster that looks like a Ferrari replicates riding in an actual Ferrari. Firstly, a Ferrari car doesn't do 360degree loops, or pull into a dive that would make your testicles feel as if they've left through your brain. In a Ferrari, you'd be on a road, and at the very least, the nausea you'd get would be if you felt your testicles leaving you as you accelerate forward or sideways and not downwards or upside down.

Secondly, the Ferrari ride would be silent, or have some electrical or mechanical whirling sound that you could replicate with a blender instead of a stonking V8 or V12 soundtrack. All of this is just to grab money from some middle eastern billionaire and the tons of tourists that head over to that barren part of the world. I don't think actual owners would bother going to U.A.E, they'd rather make a pilgrimage towards Maranello, Italy the first chance they get and kiss the ground that Enzo Ferrari walked on. Its like the Aston Martin Cygnet, brand marketing gone extreme.

Now if you would take a look at the products that I've also posted here. I would think that they would look good with a supercar brand logo stamped on them, especially that throne  seat cover. I'd like to sit on a prancing horse if I'm doing some of my business. Wouldn't you like to do so too?