Learning from BMW
BMW has always been a company I admire. I've owned their cars, I've taken their cars apart, and I've raced their cars. Great cars. Until recently, they were—by and large—also very attractive cars. But a couple of years ago they started following other people's lead in design, and subsequently produced a series of some of the ugliest cars you can imagine. Hey, it's not just me: I've actually read public death threats against their new head of design (now out looking for work, I hear).
What the heck has this got to do with anything?
Be a leader, not a follower. Like your mama told you, if everybody jumped off a bridge, would you? BMW damaged its brand by moving away from subdued, attractive Teutonic styling to some sort of art deco, retro space-ship kind of thing. Their old line faithful customers hate it, the car magazines hate it, and it ain't selling.
You can't afford to misstep. This little episode will wind up costing BMW more millions than they can count—losses from sales they don't make, losses from re-tooling to fix the problem, losses from people who change brands and never come back (remember the lifetime customer theory).
