BMW

"The investment in a BMW unites his taste for action, for speed-he is constantly seen crisscrossing Brittany at the wheel; he has had his own plane for almost ten years-with the reaffirmation of his ambition. Everyone will know that he is not affected by the events. On the contrary, he draws more energy from them. And it's true. He feels better when he goes on the offensive."

"This is how François Pinault thinks. On May 10, 1981, the Breton businessman, then relatively unknown, was in Rennes, where he had voted. As soon as the results were known, he went down to the street and spent the evening observing the jubilant crowd and smelling the air of the new times. He was skeptical but interested. And on Monday morning, he went to buy a high-end BMW in cash, both to "ward off bad luck" and to lift the spirits of his dealer, who was despairing at the thought of never selling another beautiful car again..."

"Everybody says they obviously want to find the best television they can within their price bracket. They’d answer all these questions as if they were hyper-logical, they’d say that obviously if this thing costs less than the iPad, and it’s better, then they’ll buy it. Then reality comes into it, and actually, the reason they buy the iPad is that they know that every time they get out the Samsung, all their friends will say: “why did you get that, why didn’t you buy the iPad?” and that this will bring with it a little burst of anxiety and a little burst of effort. Never, never underestimate the importance of that. If you buy a Ford or you buy a BMW or a Volkswagen and it breaks down a lot, it’s Ford’s fault, and you and all your friends will go: “golly you’re really unlucky you bought that new Ford and the clutch plate’s gone, bloody hell, I do feel sorry for you”, and you will get a degree of sympathy from your friends, okay? If you go and buy an Alfa Romeo and the clutch plate goes, deep down all your friends are thinking: “what does he expect, he goes and buys an Alfa Romeo, what the hell does he expect?” If you’re going to buy this flash, weird Italian car, it’s going to break down."

"The street finds its own uses for things, as someone once said. And isn’t it interesting how many successful brands eschew user imagery. easyJet works hard to deposition itself — to be socially neutral. Apple uses dead people or silhouettes. BMW for years had a rule that no people could be shown in its ads (an especially wise move as not even BMW drivers like other BMW drivers — or anyone else for that matter; note to BMW … don’t try starting a social network). Is Red Bull an energy drink or a mixer? What is the user-imagery of Amazon? Who is the typical Google user? What makes Google better? The fact that we cannot answer these questions simply would typically be considered a flaw."

"One engineer recalled using the time on the flight to ask Musk his opinion on the suspension characteristics for the Model S, a subject they had been debating. Because Tesla was building their car from scratch, such questions were purely up to them. Was the car’s handling going to be sporty, like a BMW, or more giving, like a Lexus? Musk paused, looking directly at his engineer. “I’m going to sell a fuck load of cars, so whatever suspension you need so I can sell a fuck load of cars—that’s the suspension I want.”"