TLDR:
- Actions do indeed speak louder than words
- It’s not all about what people will think. It’s about enhancing the user experience for actual, prospective customers and not the masses.
How public opinion can sometimes be very misleading
When you think of BMW, there’s likely one of two things that come to mind: either its iconic emblem composed of four colored quadrants in blue and white that resembles a spinning airplane propeller or that kidney grille everyone associates with BMW.
The kidney grille’s origins date all the way back to 1933, first designed by Fritz Fielder as a way to improve the aerodynamics of the BMW 303. It ended up becoming an icon and legend in the car enthusiasts community, as irrespective of the BMW model, the kidney grille was ever-present in various heights, widths, shapes, and positions.
This all changed in the last quarter of 2019 when BMW unveiled its Concept 4 at the Frankfurt Auto Show, with a grille completely different from what BMW had been producing for the past 86 years: a beaver teeth grill.
The beaver teeth grill officially replaced the kidney grille for the 2021 model year and onwards, and it was met with a horde of criticism and backlash.
Subreddits, automotive forums, article writers, YouTube videos, and comment sections all went crazy.
It felt as if BMW would have to file for Chapter 13 bankruptcy seeing how poorly the grille was received.
“People either don't like it or are afraid to come out and admit it. No matter how hard you scour the world wide web - to the point where you can even visit BMW-dedicated websites and forums - you won't find anyone saying they like what the design team did with the face of the new 4 Series. At best, you might get an "I don't mind it," but that's about as positive as it gets.”
The mass backlash the beaver teeth grille received is akin to the backlash the Angel Eyes headlights received way back in 2001 when it was first introduced.
These headlights were first seen on the BMW 5-series platform starting with the E39 and ended up becoming the standard daytime running lights in many newer BMW models after a facelift in spite of the criticism, as BMW wanted to distinguish their vehicles from the rest of the pack.
The initial outrage of the beaver teeth grille had died down, but about a month after the Concept 4 was unveiled,
of an M3 model in a production plant. This saw outrage return once again, as, for the week of October 20th-26th, the terms “BMW kidney grill” and “BMW new grill” were being searched in noticeable volumes, as illustrated below.
The beaver teeth grille design was overseen by BMW’s design head Domagoj Dukec and the group design boss Adrian van Hooydonk.
So why did they decide to change the grille design? Was it purely for aesthetical reasons or did it have to do with engine performance just like with the kidney grille back? Did they anticipate the heaps of backlash they’d receive?
Not really,” Dukec tells Top Gear when asked if they were surprised by the sheer volume of criticism received. “I’ve been in this business for over 20 years. You know how it is in design - everybody has an opinion. That’s normal. If you want to create something that stands out, it must be distinguished and it has to be different.”
Dukec goes on to essentially say that he doesn’t care about what you think.
“Now, this is a special time. It is different and distinguished [the new cars], I think this is something we are used to. It is not our goal to please everyone in the world. You can’t make a design which pleases everyone. But you have to please your customers,” he says.
“Not all our products get the same critics,” said Dukec. “You can see that on something as polarising like the kidneys on the 4 Series, 20 percent of people are liking it. That fits to the type of customers we are targeting.
“It’s impossible to create something where everybody will cheer and say ‘this is the most beautiful car in the world.”
In the same interview, van Hooydonk stresses that his team’s job ‘is not easy.’
“In 2021, we are making design decisions for products that will come into the market in 2024. And those will then remain in the market for seven or eight years, so beyond 2030. How will customers react in so many years from now?” he says.
“We don’t know. What we do know is that if we don’t move, we become a sitting duck. I guess the name of the game is to move enough so that the company thrives in the future, but not so much you lose contact with your fan base altogether,” he added.
Even leading up to the unveiling of the beaver teeth grille at the 2019 Frankfurt Auto Show, BMW’s stocks were already plummeting.
The beaver teeth grille was unveiled on September 24th, and three days later, BMW’s stock price was $23.12. The growth rate from the first week of 2019 to September 27th was -$4.28 (-15.62%), far from encouraging for investors.
When the 2021 model years for the M3 and M4 with the new beaver teeth grille officially made their debuts about a year later on September 22nd, 2020, three days after, the stock price was more or less the same price as last year’s around this time: $23.07.
However, on New Years Eve, the growth rate of BMW’s stock price from the week of the 2021 model year debutants soared up by $6.28 (27.22%).
The BMW financial report for the 2021 fiscal year shows that in spite of the fiercely negative reception leading up to the official production of the 2021 M3 and M4 models, the change in design completely turned BMW’s fortunes around.
“The BMW Group marked a new milestone in the success story of its BMW M brand in 2021, delivering a total of 163,541 units of its high-performance models (2020: 144,231 units), 13.4% up on the previous year. The new BMW M3 and BMW M4 as well as the BMW X5 M and BMW X6 M Sports Activity Vehicle all contributed significantly to the sales growth recorded in 2021."
The 3/4 series held the biggest share of deliveries in 2021, with 22.2% as seen above. It also saw the second biggest increase in deliveries out of all the models delivered in 2021, further amplifying the positive reception the beaver teeth grille M3/M4 models were greeted after production officially began.
BMW’s Vice President for Customer, Brand, and Sales Timo Resch also spoke earlier this year about the overwhelming success of the M3/M4 models.
A quick Google trend data search of the terms “BMW M3” and “BMW M4” shows that in the last 5 years, both models reached peak popularity in search volume in the week of their release (September 22nd)
So in spite of the heavy backlash received when the Concept 4 was first released to the eye of the public, how did it end up becoming BMW’s post-pandemic savior?
Psychology would say this is a classic case of the mere-exposure effect.
Discovered by Polish-American social psychologist Robert Zajonc, it is a psychological phenomenon stating that being exposed to a specific thing more and more (particularly for a thing you initially dislike), increases familiarity as well as the likelihood of you ending up liking the thing.
At the end of the day, it's not always all about what people will think, but rather, what can be done to create a better user experience.