Is being "cool" the right strategy?

I’m quite late in writing this entry as I found out that the launch date of the product and the associated marketing campaign date back to 4 years ago, but actually I read about this marketing campaign being presented as a “success case” in a the November 2009 issue of a magazine and I have my doubts about that so I want to share my opinion with you. OK, here they are: Volkswagen Fox and the Fox Hotel.

Fox is a city car produced and designed by Volkswagen and sold in Europe since 2005. It is produced as a three-door or a five-door hatchback. In the European market, the Fox replaced the Lupo city car and at a far cheaper price.



As part of the promotion for the launch of the Volkswagen Fox, a hotel in central Copenhagen was totally redesigned by 21 different artists. Each of the 61 rooms is a unique artwork in itself, and Hotel FOX still exists today, years after the actual launch is over.


Personally, I like the designs of the rooms very much, as far as I saw the photos of many of them on the Internet. They surely can give a very fun and unique experience to the hosts. On the other hand, I consider this marketing effort to be somewhat inconsistent with the brand promise and also inefficient in terms of reaching the target customers.


What does the VW Fox car promise?: As it is stated on its website, “it’s small enough to nip round the city, yet roomy enough to sit four comfortably. It’s big on style and big on economy. But the biggest surprise is its price – it’s smaller than you think” and on the picture of the car, it writes “Fox Urban” on the number plate. So, from this, I get two words: Urban and economy. In terms of giving the urban feeling, the hotel goes, let’s say, half way. Having been designed by actual urban artists from differing fields of art, the rooms are indeed in urban spirit; but then why are they all gathered up in a place where only a certain portion of the urban population has reach to. After all, the visitors may be those who are just tourists in Copenhagen, those who have heard/read about the hotel and are there for the experience or a random mix, which is probably of lower share in the visitor base. Even if less creative, I think it might have been better if VW used the investment not for this hotel, but spread the total investments into several cities across Europe, where the real urban culture could have been spread more massively. So, let’s say, it could have just parked a bunch of Fox cars in central urban areas and not directly next to them, but on the roads coming to that place, held some urban art and design activities which would be performance based. So, this way, the excitement would be spread more evenly across different cities and be customized according to those cities urban elements. Keeping the idea just in a hotel rather can make it more elite, but not so “urban” in spirit.

Let’s come to the second brand promise: economy. The car is communicated to be small in price as well, but as I check the hotel prices as of today, I see that the regular price for one adult per night in a medium room for this weekend is 187Euros and the range of prices goes up as one prefers either larger or different styled rooms. I have the sense that a visitor who can afford this price, either just to have a hotel room or to get a taste of this Fox experience, would consider cars of a higher segment, both in terms of size and price, or maybe I’ve got a wrong sense…

(at the end, I’d like to stress that I’ve written this entry for the sole purpose of thinking in marketing terms, but not to criticize a company that I actually appreciate!)