Modern Cars 2011: From rubber to fashion P. By Pirelli

Today I saw something which really surprised me. I didn’t see ten Bugatti Veyrons at the same time. What I saw was more interesting than that! A terrible consequence of extreme brand extension strategy by Pirelli marketing team. This is the same Pirelli which produces tyres and calendar (I still could not understand the point of calendar’s impact on tyres). Let me tell you what I saw today, Pirelli branded shoes! Yes, they are shoes for humans and sold in Selfridges (Department store in UK) with a very “nice” price 210 € or 175 £ or 285 $.

These shoes are the extreme edges of lunatic brand extension tactics. Company thinks, we can expand our brand to everything and make products which never fit with the brand. Pirelli is a rubber company and mainly focused on vehicle tyres. Everyone perceives Pirelli as a heavy industry firm not a fashion firm! As a result of this perception nobody expects to see a Pirelli in department store.

Unfortunately Pirelli thought we should be in fashion business, because we publish a sexy calendar each year. So people may wish to wear a tyre brand :) Or they might think; we have lots of extra rubber let’s turn them into shoes and sell them. Whatever they thought is not working that well. Nobody was looking at Pirelli shoes or I have never seen Pirelli shoes on any fashion magazine. I think main reason for this, people used to see Pirelli on their car but they are not used to see on their feet! And this is the minor point Pirelli may accidently skipped!

I did some research on internet and I found out that it is worse than I thought. Pirelli has women section also! They also have high heels for women! I have never seen a woman who desires to wear a pair of Pirellis.

You can see the women and men collection of rubber producer Pirelli. I think they have more thinks but I could only found these on Yoox.com

The shoes I took pictures were named as PZero and here is the real PZero! And the Pirelli’s fashion brand called as P. By Pirelli. Don’t miss the dot after the P :)

A typical fashion conversation;

-Where did you buy your shoes? From Pirelli.