A few months ago, Ferrari, the all Italian stallion supercarnistas issued fashion brand owner "Philipp Plein" with a cease and desist order for putting up a picture of his shoes from his own brand, together with his own newly purchased Ferrari.
It was alleged that because of the similarities in colours between the shoes and the car, that viewers of the picture could possibly mistaken the Ferrari brand having a collaboration with the fashion giant. Ferrari alleged that the clash of brands incite inconsistent brand perception and could cause financial damage to Ferrari because of distasteful brand perception incoherent with Ferrari's own lifestyle mantra.
This is complete and utter bullshit. But further to that, it is a gross crossing of the rights to ownership of fully settled purchase of the car. In the end, the picture is just that of a wealth man's shoes, and a wealth man's supercar. There was no intent to insinuate anything else.
At the core of the problem, is Ferrari's perception of it's customers. They envision Ferrari customers to be people living decadent, extravagant lifestyles and definitely sporting high end fashion to boot. Surely they can't expect the customer to also wear Ferrari branded shoes? Surely Philipp Plein is the exact kind of clientele Ferrari should be tapping into? He has bought no less than 4 brand new Ferrari's in the last decade and if not for this fiasco would likely by another 4 more at the very least.
This all comes back to understand your customer, and embracing them. Especially when they have the kind of spending power that Philipp Plein does. Ferrari needs to realise that Ferrari Flex Friday's is a thing and the people are going to want to customise their cars to the degree of their choosing. No other car manufacturer including the bullish neighbourhood friends, Lamborghini, have such outrageous trademark protection.
How would you feel in this situation? What would you?
For me, I would tell Ferrari to suck a horse and give my money back. I'll also tell them and my entire fan base (assuming I had a big one) that Ferrari betray's it's customers loyalty by dictating what customers can and cannot do with the cars they spent their hard earned money buying.