Chinese car makers are hiring foreign designers in an attempt to build globally recognised brands
Bloomberg in Beijing 14 June 2012
Leonardo Fioravanti, the designer of the Ferrari Daytona and 288 GTO, has a new job: transforming a Chinese army motorcycle maker into a global premium car brand.
Beijing Automotive, which traces its roots to producing sidecar motorcycles for use in the Korean war, hired Fioravanti as chief design officer in April.
The carmaker unveiled a prototype luxury sedan at the Beijing motor show and has said it wants to make “world-class” cars by 2025.
“Chinese manufacturers recognise that they have some problems that they have to improve, one of which is the lack of brand identity,” Fioravanti, 74, who started his career with Pininfarina - the design studio behind the Ferrari 458 Italia and Maserati GranCabrio convertible - said from Moncalieri, Italy.
“The first that achieves its own recognisable brand identity and styling language will be the winner.”
Beijing Auto is among several Chinese carmakers betting that hiring a star designer will help burnish their brands and reverse a widening gap in market share behind General Motors and Volkswagen.
Chinese brands’ share of sedan and compact car sales fell to 27.5 per cent in this year’s first five months from 31.4 per cent a year earlier, data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers shows. None of the top 10 passenger vehicle models by sales this year belonged to home-grown brands.
BMW’s mainland partner, Brilliance China Automotive, hired Italian Dimitri Vicedomini from Pininfarina to head its in-house team. Qoros Auto, a joint venture between Chery Automobile and Israel Corp that plans to introduce a luxury sedan for China and Europe next year, hired former Mini chief designer Gert Hildebrand in January last year to head its design team. Great Wall Motor, the mainland’s biggest maker of SUVs, appointed former Mercedes-Benz designer Andreas Deufel design director last year. Former Volvo Car chief designer Peter Horbury joined Zhejiang Geely as senior vice-president in charge of design last year.
“Hiring successful foreign designers helps shorten the time needed for local automakers to catch up with world-famous brands like Audi and BMW, which had a century’s head start,” said Xu Feifei, brand strategy director at Labbrand Enterprise Management Consulting (Shanghai). “With enough time, consumers will recognise that this look belongs to this brand.”
But these highly paid foreign designers could only do so much, said Greg Anderson, author of Designated Drivers: How China Plans to Dominate the Global Auto Industry.
“It would be as if Leonardo da Vinci were hired to teach a group of aspiring artists how to create art,” Anderson said.
“He could never transfer the essence of how a naturally talented artist creates something like the Mona Lisa or The Last Supper.”
For local carmakers to close the gap with foreign competitors, design quality has to rank more equitably with speed-to-market considerations, said Wang Bo, director of Tsinghua University’s automotive design programme.
Many Chinese carmakers gave their designers as little as three to five months to come up with a design for a new model, compared with the more than 20 months that was standard international practice, he said.
“The first response for many Chinese designers is to go on the internet and copy from BMW and Mercedes and hand in the work,” Wang said.
For Fioravanti, Chinese carmakers have a long way to go before they can build a world-famous brand.
“Brand development is something that maybe you cannot appreciate immediately but I think is a long-term investment,” he said.
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Shortcut to a home-grown Ferrari
Chinese car makers are hiring foreign designers in an attempt to build globally recognised brands
Bloomberg in Beijing
14 June 2012
Leonardo Fioravanti, the designer of the Ferrari Daytona and 288 GTO, has a new job: transforming a Chinese army motorcycle maker into a global premium car brand.
Beijing Automotive, which traces its roots to producing sidecar motorcycles for use in the Korean war, hired Fioravanti as chief design officer in April.
The carmaker unveiled a prototype luxury sedan at the Beijing motor show and has said it wants to make “world-class” cars by 2025.
“Chinese manufacturers recognise that they have some problems that they have to improve, one of which is the lack of brand identity,” Fioravanti, 74, who started his career with Pininfarina - the design studio behind the Ferrari 458 Italia and Maserati GranCabrio convertible - said from Moncalieri, Italy.
“The first that achieves its own recognisable brand identity and styling language will be the winner.”
Beijing Auto is among several Chinese carmakers betting that hiring a star designer will help burnish their brands and reverse a widening gap in market share behind General Motors and Volkswagen.
Chinese brands’ share of sedan and compact car sales fell to 27.5 per cent in this year’s first five months from 31.4 per cent a year earlier, data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers shows. None of the top 10 passenger vehicle models by sales this year belonged to home-grown brands.
BMW’s mainland partner, Brilliance China Automotive, hired Italian Dimitri Vicedomini from Pininfarina to head its in-house team. Qoros Auto, a joint venture between Chery Automobile and Israel Corp that plans to introduce a luxury sedan for China and Europe next year, hired former Mini chief designer Gert Hildebrand in January last year to head its design team. Great Wall Motor, the mainland’s biggest maker of SUVs, appointed former Mercedes-Benz designer Andreas Deufel design director last year. Former Volvo Car chief designer Peter Horbury joined Zhejiang Geely as senior vice-president in charge of design last year.
“Hiring successful foreign designers helps shorten the time needed for local automakers to catch up with world-famous brands like Audi and BMW, which had a century’s head start,” said Xu Feifei, brand strategy director at Labbrand Enterprise Management Consulting (Shanghai). “With enough time, consumers will recognise that this look belongs to this brand.”
But these highly paid foreign designers could only do so much, said Greg Anderson, author of Designated Drivers: How China Plans to Dominate the Global Auto Industry.
“It would be as if Leonardo da Vinci were hired to teach a group of aspiring artists how to create art,” Anderson said.
“He could never transfer the essence of how a naturally talented artist creates something like the Mona Lisa or The Last Supper.”
For local carmakers to close the gap with foreign competitors, design quality has to rank more equitably with speed-to-market considerations, said Wang Bo, director of Tsinghua University’s automotive design programme.
Many Chinese carmakers gave their designers as little as three to five months to come up with a design for a new model, compared with the more than 20 months that was standard international practice, he said.
“The first response for many Chinese designers is to go on the internet and copy from BMW and Mercedes and hand in the work,” Wang said.
For Fioravanti, Chinese carmakers have a long way to go before they can build a world-famous brand.
“Brand development is something that maybe you cannot appreciate immediately but I think is a long-term investment,” he said.
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