Identity parade
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What have Mercedes-Benz and Marks and Spencer in common? A great deal, according to Wally Olins, the celebrated and erudite industrial designer.
They both have "a clear idea of what they are about" and -are obsessed by their own technology". Wally added: "The idea behind the product has taken such firm root that virtually anyone who works in either of these companies is aware that certain standards in products and product development, in service, in packaging, in technology, in pricing, in human relations, are appropriate to them and what they do, and such standards are followed. Life is made much easier for suppliers, customers and everyone else who deals with the company . .
Wally Olins was talking to the Royal Society of Arts about -Corporate identity — the myth and the reality", and he quoted these two companies as having
"powerful, idiosyncratic and well-understood identity".
They also "sturdily and successfully set out to give the consumer what is good for him and not what he wants".
In the case of trucks, at least, the evidence is that what is good for the user is also what he wants. SMMT statistics show an incredible increase from 297 new registrations of MercedesBenz "trucks and artics" in the first two months of 1 978 to 521 in the corresponding period this year. They were responsible for nearly half the growth in the import trade in competition with 12 other foreign sources of sup ply.