Ferrari, Brand Gymnastics and the Limits of Flexibility

Before social media, the launch of a new Ferrari—and whatever negative reaction it generated—would probably have remained a niche conversation among devoted Ferraristi, enthusiasts with petrol in their veins and prancing horses even hanging from their shower curtains. Today, it can become a global spectacle capable of erasing billions in value from a legendary company, fuelled by waves of comments from people eager to join the pile-on.

The counterpoint is that it is difficult to imagine the launch of a new KIA triggering a social media storm of near-tsunami proportions. And yet, there are far more current and potential KIA customers online than Ferrari customers. So in many ways, the fact that Ferrari provokes such strong emotions is a positive sign. It confirms the aspirational nature of a brand whose perception is shaped by values deeply embedded in global popular culture: Italianità, passion, sport and, above all, a love of risk.

The Luce offers intelligent solutions, respect for certain historical codes and genuine technological innovation. But what people miss—and what they demand from Ferrari—is something else: risk. Many see it as a car that plays things too safe. “It could be a Chinese car,” some say. Or, worse still, a French one.

This leads us to a second paradox. Most social-media backlashes against design changes are driven by a fundamentally conservative impulse.

The irony is that, in trying to remain faithful to that very value, Ferrari may have gone too far. Not because it embraced risk, but because it applied it in the wrong place: the model itself and the technology behind it. What people want is a sense of risk in the brand’s attitude, not necessarily in the product category.

This brings us to the second major lesson highlighted by Ferrari Luce: brand elasticity.

Brand flexibility, or brand elasticity, in more academic terms, is a brand’s ability to expand into new territories, categories or audiences without losing recognition or coherence with its founding values. It is not a fixed trait. It is a muscle. And like any muscle, it needs to be trained if it is not to tear under too much strain.

For decades, Ferrari has prided itself on its unwavering commitment to the supercar. While Porsche introduced SUVs more than twenty years ago, Luca di Montezemolo publicly insisted Ferrari would never build a 4x4. Enzo Ferrari once said that when someone buys a Ferrari, they are buying an engine; everything else is a gift. Ferrari built its legacy not only around a set of values, but around a very specific product category.

And that is where the real mistake lies.

Ferrari has gone from being a brand exclusively associated with petrol-powered supercars to unveiling, all at once, an electric vehicle with five doors, a colour palette that does not rely on red, and a design developed outside Maranello. What’s more, it is communicated with the tone of a new iPhone launch, presenting technological details as though they were new features. It has not taken one step. It has taken five.

It is the equivalent of attempting a triple jump without warming up—after spending years proudly declaring that jumping was neither necessary nor interesting in the first place. But without training, there is no flexibility. And that is why, despite being filled with intelligent references and thoughtful nods to Ferrari’s world, the product simply does not read as a Ferrari for much of the audience. That is the fundamental mistake: overestimating how far a brand can stretch before it breaks.

Nobody is really debating whether the car itself is good or bad. Most people admire it. What many are debating is whether it is a Ferrari—both in tangible and intangible terms. Montezemolo, now outside the company, certainly has a view: “I hope they at least remove the Prancing Horse from that car. If I said what I really think, I would damage Ferrari. We are risking the destruction of a myth… and that hurts me deeply.”

What makes this particularly striking is that it comes from two designers who helped build the foundations of contemporary technology design—a world that has historically evolved through incremental progress.

Before touchscreens came the mouse. Then the trackpad. Eventually, fingers directly on glass. Along the way, we purchased dozens of intermediate devices. Incremental design is one of the most fundamental principles taught in design schools, although designers themselves often forget it. There is a story that illustrates this principle particularly well. During China’s Cultural Revolution in 1966, some Red Guards argued that because red was the colour of the revolution, it should no longer mean “stop” at traffic lights, but “go” instead. Whenever attempts were made to introduce the idea, even on a limited scale, the result was chaos. 

The automotive industry has understood this exceptionally well. Today, legendary brands are able to sell vehicles to vastly different audiences while maintaining a coherent identity. You can be a Mercedes person whether you are rich or poor, single or raising a family. There is a model for you.

But that did not happen overnight. These are brands that have spent decades doing the necessary gymnastics. Ferrari, by contrast, never wanted to. And that is precisely what made it unique. Its identity has always been inseparable from what it does (the red arrows) and why it does it: speed, risk, competition and passion.

The day Ferrari finally decided to start doing gymnastics, it attempted a triple backflip. The outcome was exactly what one might expect: more crash than landing. If Newson and Ive had designed a new supercar, everything would probably be fine. If Ferrari had launched its first five-door model, everything would probably be fine. If it had introduced its first electric Ferrari, everything would probably be fine. But doing all of those things at once—and communicating them through discussions of screens, interfaces and industrial design—makes the overall reaction fairly predictable. Va fan culo!

Beyond the Ferrari case, the lesson applies to any brand. Everyone who works in branding hopes people will carry the brands we build close to their hearts.

There is also a widely held belief that a brand capable of communicating its values effectively can sell almost anything under the umbrella of those same values. Reality is far less romantic. Getting there takes preparation, planning and incremental progress.

That is why I do not blame the design of the Luce for this crisis. I believe it contains brilliant solutions and many unmistakably Ferrari qualities. It simply is not a Ferrari that many enthusiasts recognise as one. The responsibility therefore lies not with this product, but with the products that should have existed before it. It lies in the absence of a long-term brand strategy capable of leading to a destination like Luce. It lies in a failure of brand positioning. And it lies in excessive optimism about how far a brand can stretch in a single move. Without warming up.

At Mucho, we have spent years helping brands perform exactly this kind of gymnastics. Even the triple jumps. But always after proper training. Brand elasticity is not a one-day decision, nor an act of bravery. It is the result of patient strategic work: understanding how far a brand’s values and perceptions can stretch; identifying the directions in which it can grow without breaking; and building the necessary steps that make change recognisable. And exciting.

Ferrari Luce is not a design failure. It is a reminder that even the world’s most powerful brands need someone to ask: Have you warmed up?

Words: Pablo Juncadella, Partner & Creative Director, in collaboration with Joan Picanyol, Partner & Chief Strategy Officer at Mucho.