BMW is reinventing its design philosophy and shifting upmarket with new, distinctly flavoured luxury models. Richard Bremner investigates Bayerische Motoren Werke.
The spelling out of the BMW name in full, and the use of a black and silver roundel (rather than the famous blue and white propeller logo), are among the more subtle indicators of a significant change of direction for the Munich-based manufacturer.
A new design language is rising for both the interiors and exteriors of its automobiles. The emblem is going to stretch itself further upmarket. And it?S providing itself in new methods. That?S for the mainstream BMWs, for the electrified i-logo motors and for the newly designated luxurious fashions, whose print, TV and online presentation can be followed via that BMW call in complete, and the black and silver badge.
At the recent Frankfurt motor show, where this new signage could be seen above a display of special 7 Series saloons (one yacht-inspired exploratory version of which has wooden floor mats...), BMW also rolled out its handsome 8 Series concept, the rather less elegant X7 show car and an electric i Vision Dynamics saloon with a twin kidney grille of rather startling proportions.
Indeed, the grilles of all three ideas range considerably in shape, texture, proportion and form, and are all further clues to BMW?S change of tack. Which is lots extra big even than the reshaping and recolouring of BMW?S maximum famous visible signatures, as the business enterprise?S product control and design chiefs give an explanation for.
?There are a pair of factors that occurred in parallel inside the BMW Group,? Says BMW Group design boss Adrian van Hooydonk, who explains the genesis of this shift.
“First, expanding at the top end of our range is something that we’ve been wanting to do for a while. We believe that there’s room to do so – actually our customers are asking for more products at the top end – and almost at the same time as we were plotting new cars like the 8 Series and the X7, we realised that when we came to 2018, we would hit a wave of new products, including the Z4 and a couple of other cars.
?In truth, six or seven new BMWs could be rolled out inside the next yr-and-a-half of or so. I?Ve been with this employer a while and we?Ve completed quite a few product in the past, but I could say that we?Ve never performed such a lot of new motors for one particular emblem in one of these short time frame.?
With such a rich array of new models under development, the company reckoned that this was “an opportunity, because if you can roll six cars in one-and-a-half years, you can pretty much transform the brand,” says van Hooydonk. “We also felt that it was the right time because we felt quite happy with the design up until now. But you have to keep moving. You don’t want to become a sitting duck.”
Not permitting BMW to grow to be a sitting duck is also a motivation for BMW?S product management and emblem leader Hildegard Wortmann. ?I think it?S essential if you have any such robust brand that you keep it sparkling all the time, which you hold it authentic, that you preserve it on the edge,? She says. To that stop, Wortmann, a logo professional with experience at each Unilever and Calvin Klein earlier than she joined BMW in 1998, has overseen a three-pronged reorientation of the way BMW provides itself to the sector. And with her contribution to the product development process, she has been involved with the substance of the brand new motors too.
Those 3 prongs are the mainstream BMWs, the i-emblem motors and the newly certain luxurious Bayerische Motoren Werke fashions.
BMW enthusiasts might notice that people now appear in some of the company’s ads, and that the tone of its messaging, which cuts across social media as well, alters according to the model. Wortmann cites “the latest [advertising] campaign on the 1 Series – it’s completely digital, dealing with the topic of drones, doing competitions and installations with drones. This freshening up is keeping the brand up to date, making it modern. The challenge is to do different interpretations with each and every car, depending on the different segments, and the different target audiences.”
With the i models, she adds, “you’ll see a much fresher approach with more digital, more multimedia and more emotion. It’s a strong statement of attitude.” BMW’s luxury models – the existing 7 Series, and the forthcoming X7 and 8 Series Coupé – will be represented using a strategy borrowed from the fashion world, “by going back to our roots and using the full name, like Alexander McQueen”, says Wortmann. The McQueen fashion house and others spell the brand’s name out for its high-end lines, and use initials for the more affordable products.
The visible man or woman of the cars themselves will exchange too, says van Hooydonk, for ?This new bankruptcy in our form language. Pretty quickly, we got here to the belief that it have to be something this is cleaner, in which we are looking to attain a lot with fewer elements, and less lines.
?But the strains that we do have should be crisper, sharper and greater precise. We believe that this will healthy very well with those new pinnacle-stop merchandise. When you lessen the shape language, the details matter greater. In the luxurious section, wherein often more is extra, we are supplying luxury in a totally modern way.?
The new layout language isn?T most effective approximately simplifying and refining shapes. BMW is keen to broaden extra man or woman identities inside its variety, as those hanging new grilles suggest. ?In the next vehicle generation, we want to separate every and each version. They have very exceptional varieties of competition that could be from definitely special brands. The industry has changed in that sense,? Says van Hooydonk.
?For the luxurious automobiles, it's far continually a very good concept to separate them from the following vehicle up ? That?S some thing that we are able to do. If you examine the eight Series, I believe it deserves that name. Like the preceding eight Series, it?S a vehicle that?S not a saloon-derived coupe?.?
With a new layout language underneath improvement and that wave of recent models for 2018, van Hooydonk and the marketing group reckoned that BMW ought to additionally think again its company identity. That procedure become led by way of Wortmann, who says: ?You saw the primary day trip at the Frankfurt notor show with the fully written ?Bayerische Motoren Werke? Within the black and white logo, at least in print. We experience that it?S extra elegant and complex. It suits with what we're seeking to do with the form language.?
As is probably expected, the design team has adopted a brand new interior approach too, ?For the same motives ? There too we should smooth up?, says van Hooydonk. ?Cars turns into extra smart and that?S beginning to occur now. It method you have to tell the car less what it needs to do and what you need from it. So you will want fewer buttons.
?The buttons that we do nevertheless have are smartly grouped in a couple of islands in the centre console or inside the dashboard in the Z4, 8 Series and X7 idea cars. The cockpits are going to head toward virtual and constantly consist of a head-up show, and the way you use the car will then become a mix among contact, some hard keys and voice control.?
That?S for the close to-to-medium time period, in the course of which ?The intelligence of motors will develop?, says van Hooydonk. ?Before lengthy, motors might be self-learning and, in the long run, will be capable of force autonomously. That opens up other possibilities because you could sit down human beings in one of a kind ways in the car. We can assume to look a lot greater development inside the interior of vehicles in the subsequent couple of years. With those idea cars, we?Re also showing with the indoors that whilst you lessen, it actually may be extra high-priced and there is more area for extraordinary materials.?
In 2018, then, we are able to anticipate this visible revolution to take off with some force. As Wortmann and van Hooydonk provide an explanation for, these adjustments were fired by each layout and advertising and marketing. ?If it pulls the brand a little bit further upmarket, that?S good,? Reckons van Hooydonk.
Given the scope of this shift for BMW, the results could generate usefully greater than that too.
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