From the BMW Group press release: The MINI Gentleman’s Collection at the 88th Pitti Uomo in Florence. High-end fashion accessories for gents. Munich/Florence –*To drive a MINI is to make a statement. To wear MINI is now equally so. On the occasion of the 88th Pitti Uomo, a famous men’s fashion event,*MINI teamed with six […] More...
The photos. I kinda what to know what that cologne actually smells like. Woodsy and Spicy but indescribable and definitely MINI. What?
The MINI component of the scent is a heady mix of crank seal seepage oil, walnut shell and carbon essence with just whiff of sweetness contributed by coolant leaks.
So, what does this have to do with a Clubman? Or is it aimed at Club-men? As in people who go to clubs.....
Let's face it - you only have to get as far as "lifestyle collection" before there's this nasty taste in your mouth....
I don't really see what the big deal is about this. It's not like they are pulling their designers to work on these projects. It is a European car company that has always been engaged with fashion and design. Look at the MINI International magazine, it plays on it's European customer's design taste. On a side note, those shoes are definitely something that would look nice for the office.
MINI is trying so hard to keep up a hip lifestyle image, even as it becomes ever more priced out of reach for real hipsters. MotoringFile » 2016 MINI Clubman Teased, Sort Of (Video)
MINI didn't design this. And MINI USA didn't commission it. Inside the article, you can see that artists and designers designed these things and they used the prototype Clubman as inspiration. MINI simply *sponsored* the thing. A perfumer designed the perfume. A shoe guy did the shoe. A man purse person did the man purse. This is quite unlike the MINI t-shirts available at your dealership. Apples and oranges. It's like a sponsorship. A partnership. Like giving away a MINI at a golf outing. MINI gets their name on some stuff and designers get a prize. How it works, straight from the press release: The "Pitti Immagine" is an annual trade fair held in Italy that focuses on fashion. The Pitti Uomo, a menswear show, has been staged in Florence twice a year since 1972. It promotes young, aspiring and occasionally unconventional fashion labels. "The partnership between MINI and Pitti Immagine, which embraces a range of projects, was launched in January 2015. At the 87th Pitti Uomo, for example, MINI and Pitti jointly awarded the most talented young designer accolade to Alberto Premi, who went on to present his innovative shoe collection in a Special MINI Edition at the Salone del Mobile in April 2015." It's not the death knell of the brand. You can still buy your engine mounts from your local dealer and future MINIs won't look like shoes or cologne bottles.
Whew... That's a load off my mind.... Sooo... The "Man Purse" that MINI sold a couple of years ago, through the parts department, had no genesis from that association?
Lol! Maybe. Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll start selling a greater variety of the European items! From a woman's perspective, it grows tiresome browsing through racks of t-shirts that are seriously undersized and cut for people who have been starved into submission. Many women have been buying the men's t-shirts for years. It's about time the tables turn a little and you get to enjoy some of our traditional accessories!
The MOM Silverbacks can help out with offering our "Prestretch" services.... None of the MOM Weedhoppers have this ability.... Has to be one of the Silverbacks...
I don't see it that way. Fundamentally it is an advertising campaign. It serves the same function as branded swag.
It's an interesting conversation - the hipster marketing tilt. On the point about these products being the same as branded swag, we differ. As a marketer, it is plain as day to me that this is not the same marketing category. Or budget line item. These two things don't fall into the same quadrants of a perceptual map. This is a high fashion capsule collection designed for an Italian audience. Not even a broad Italian audience. Just the Haute Couture. It makes perfect sense that it wouldn't be embraced by Americans - except the ones who know what a Capsule Collection is - but the good thing is, you probably won't ever see one of these products in person. So the Clubman, thankfully, can be judged on its own grounds on and not on the stitching of the shoes it inspired. At least that's what a MINI marketer would hope. BUT that perceptual map has always been an interesting conundrum for MINI. It's hard on all marketers right now but worse for a brand like MINI with no one demographic. To reach such a broad audience, you have to segment your marketing. Playboy. European shoe people. Racers. Cool dads. Outdoorsy. City. It's really hard to do that in a social media world where you can't compartmentalize your audience. We are in a social-media driven, outrage-oriented world. Outdoorsy people pissed at a city ad. City people pissed at the outdoor crowd. Ads in Playboy pissing off the female-dominated markets. Shoe haters. Non-shavers. One of the biggest brick walls marketers face is that people remember crap they hate more than stuff they like. Most members of the Cool Dad demographic (yup, that's a thing) won't remember the Tony Hawk commercial. But they'll remember the cologne and the hipster-oriented F56 launch in London attended by aging male journalists. People remember the outrage and discomfort and cringe-worthy things that don't appeal to them but do to someone else. I know plenty of hipsters who have MINIs. And cool dads. And grandmoms. And Millennials. And racers. I guess there's a marketing niche for everyone.