Paris Marx makes a very good case about Elon Musk wanting to relive the good olâ days when he was doing start-ups at the beginning of the millennium. Itâs why things at Twitter are as bad as they are: Muskâs nostalgia. Itâs well worth a read if youâre interested in whatâs going on at OnlyKlans, as Marx probably nails it far better than a lot of other commentators.
There were aspects of the good old days I liked, too. Better CPM rates for online ads. Way more creativity in web design, as well as experimentation. The fact I could balance doing brand consulting, typeface design, and publishing. That helped my creativity flow. But these are rose-coloured glasses; thereâs plenty about my current life that is far better than those hairy start-up days.
If thereâs one thing Iâve learned in half a century on earth is that you canât re-create the past. And even if you could, it wouldnât be as good as how you remembered it.
Iâm often nostalgic for those early days in Hong Kong and that mega-fantastic day of the Tung Wan Hospital fair in 1975 (or was it â76?), where I got to go in the bucket of a Simon Snorkel fire engine. Wonderful day. But at the time I couldnât drive (I was three), so you canât have it all.
And millennium me running Lucire might have been having fun in terms of breaking new ground, but Iâd much rather be where I am now having talked to Rachel Hunter and putting her on the home page (and in two print editions). Our stories are also heaps better than what they were in the late 1990s.
Just enjoy the moment and make the most of where you are at. Iâve projects I want to return to, too, but if I do, I wonât be assuming the year is 2000 and working in an area I donât know that much about, while annoying all the people around me.
Itâs bittersweet to get news of the Chevrolet Corvette from whatâs left of GM here in New Zealand, now a specialist importer of cars that are unlikely to sell in any great number. And weâre not unique, as the Sino-American firm pulls out of entire regions, and manufactures basically in China, North America, and South America. Peter Hanenbergerâs prediction that there wonât be a GM in the near future appears to be coming true. Whatâs the bet that the South American ranges will eventually be superseded by Chinese product? Ford is already heading that way.
Inconceivable? If we go back to 1960, BMC was in the top 10 manufacturers in the world.
Out of interest, I decided to take four yearsâ1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020âto see who the top 10 car manufacturers were. I havenât confirmed 1990âs numbers with printed sources (theyâre off YouTube) and I donât know exactly what their measurement criteria are. Auto Katalog 1991â2 only gives country, not world manufacturer, totals and that was my most ready source.
Tables for 2000 and 2010 come from OICA, when they could be bothered compiling them. The last is from Daily Kanban and the very reliable Bertel Schmitt, though he concedes these are based on units sold, not units produced, due to the lack of data on the latter.
2000
1 GM
2 Ford
3 Toyota
4 Volkswagen
5 DaimlerChrysler
6 PSA
7 Fiat
8 Nissan
9 Renault
10 Honda
2010
1 Toyota
2 GM
3 Volkswagen (7,341,065)
4 Hyundai (5,764,918)
5 Ford
6 Nissan (3,982,162)
7 Honda
8 PSA
9 Suzuki
10 Renault (2,716,286)
If Renaultâs and Nissanâs numbers were combined, and they probably should be at this point, then they would form the fourth largest grouping.
2020
1 Toyota
2 Volkswagen
3 Renault Nissan Mitsubishi
4 GM
5 Hyundai
6 Stellantis
7 Honda
8 Ford
9 Daimler
10 Suzuki
For years we could predict the GMâFordâToyota ordering but I still remember the headlines when Toyota edged GM out. GM disputed the figures because it wanted to be seen as the worldâs number one. But by 2010 Toyota is firmly in number one and GM makes do with second place. Ford has plummeted to fifth as Volkswagen and Hyundaiâby this point having made its own designs for just three and a half decadesâovertake it.
Come 2020, with the American firmsâ expertise lying in segment-quitting ahead of competing, theyâve sunk even further: GM in fourth and Ford in eighth.
Itâs quite remarkable to me that Hyundai (presumably including Kia and Genesis) and Honda (including Acura) are in these tables with only a few brands, ditto with Daimler AG. Suzuki has its one brand, and thatâs it (if you want to split hairs, of course thereâs Maruti).
Toyota has Lexus and Daihatsu and a holding in Subaru, but given its broad range and international salesâ strength, it didnât surprise me that it has managed to have podium finishes for the last three decades. Itâs primarily used its own brand to do all its work, and thatâs no mean feat.
Iâm surprised we donât see the Chinese groups in these tables but many are being included in the othersâ totals. For instance, SAIC managed to shift 5,600,482 units sold in 2020 but some of those would have been counted in the Volkswagen and GM totals.
I wonât go into the reasons for the US manufacturersâ decline here, but things will need to change if they donât want to keep falling down these tables. Right now, it seems they will continue to decline.
Tonight, I had the sad and solemn duty to announce publicly the passing of my friend Thomas Gad.
Iâm still waiting for someone to come out and tell me that I have been severely pranked.
Thomas was the founder of what we now call Medinge Group. After working for 17 years at Grey Advertising as an international creative director, Thomas set up Brandflight, a leading branding consultancy HQed in Stockholm. He authored 4-D Branding, Managing Brand Me (with his wife, Annette Rosencreutz), and, most recently, Customer Experience Branding.
In 2000, Thomas seized on an idea: why not gather a bunch of leading brand practitioners at Annetteâs familyâs villa at Medinge, three hours west of Stockholm, for a bit of R&R, where they could all discuss ideas around the profession?
Nicholas Ind was one of the people at that first meeting. In a statement tonight, Nick wrote, âI first met Thomas when I was working in Stockholm in 2000âhe invited me to join him at Medinge in the Swedish countryside to talk about branding. So began a professional and personal relationship that was truly fulfilling. Thomas, and his wife Annette, hosted the annual meetings we had at his house every summer after that with unrivalled generosity. My strongest recollection of those days is not the debates we had or flying with Thomas in his sea plane (even though those are also memorable), but Thomas and Annette sitting at the dinner table in the evenings singing songs, telling jokes and bringing everyone together. Thomas was exceptional in the way he made everyone feel welcome and valued in the groupâhe will be deeply missed.â
I came on the scene in 2002, invited by Chris Macrae. The event had become international the year before. Thomas and Annette made me feel incredibly at home at Medinge, and we had an incredibly productive meeting. He had taught me to sing ‘Helan gĂ„r’, for no Swedish gathering is complete without a drinking song.
At the same meeting, I met Ian Ryder, who wrote, âAs a founding member, and now Honorary Life Member, of Medinge Group I couldn’t possibly let such a sad announcement pass without observation. Thomas was a really bright, intellectually and socially, human being who I first met at the inaugural pre-Medinge group meeting in Amsterdam sixteen years ago. Little did we know then that our band of open-minded, globally experienced brand experts would develop into a superb think-tank based out of Thomas’s home in Medinge, Sweden.
âFor many years he and his lovely wife, Annette, hosted with a big heart, the annual gathering at which he played fabulous host to those of us who made it there. A larger-than-life, clever and successful professional, Thomas will be sorely missed by all those lucky enough to have known him.’
By the end of the summer 2002 meeting we had some principles around branding, the idea for a book (which became Beyond Branding), and a desire to formalize ourselves into an organization. The meeting at Medinge would soon become the Medinge Group (the definite article was part of our original name), and we had come to represent brands with a conscience: the idea that brands could do good, and that business could be humane and humanistic. This came about in an environment of real change: Enron, which had been given awards for supposedly doing good, had been exposed as fraudulent; there was a generation of media-savvy young people who could see through the BS and were voting and buying based on causes they supported; and inequality was on the rise, something that the late Economist editor, Norman Macrae (Chrisâs Dad) even then called humankindâs most pressing concern. If everything is a product of its time, then that was true of us; and the issues that we care about the most are still with us, and changes to the way we do business are needed more now than ever.
This is Thomasâs legacy: Medinge Group is an incorporated company with far more members worldwide, holding two meetings per annum: the annual summer retreat in Sweden, and a public event every spring, with the next in Sevilla. The public events, and the Brands with a Conscience awards held in the 2000s, came about during Stanley Mossâs time as CEO. Stanley wrote this morning, âThomas brought his vision and resources to the foundation of Medinge, and served as a critical voice in the international movement for humanistic brands.â We continue today to spread that vision.
We have now been robbed far too early of two of our talents: Colin Morley, in the 7-7 bombings in London in 2005; and, now, Thomas, taken by cancer at age 65. My thoughts go to Annette and to the entire family.
Top Earlier today, attempting to get into Style.com meant a virus warningâthe only trace of this curiosity is in the web history. AboveStyle.com is back, with a note that it will be transforming into an e-tail site.