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Comment by emilsedgh | Hacker News Reader

I never understood why Pirelli was Inter Milan's sponsor for more than 2 decades. I always thought to myself: What's the return of investment there?

But then I realized I only know Pirelli because of that sponsorship.

Now I have never bought a tyre in my entire life and I couldn't care less about tyres but as far as brand recognition is considered that investment has worked.

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My knowledge of Pirelli came about from the Pirelli calendar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirelli_Calendar

Pirelli one actually makes a lot of sense not for the general consumer, but for cross recognition with F1.

The solely owned the F1 contract via regulation. Brand recognition is an ambiguous yet important way to maintain that. The bigwigs who help build the regulations of F1, you have to believe a number of them watch football.

So I vaguely recognise the brand, probably because of this sort of thing, but until this moment I had no idea they made tires. If you’d pressed me I’d probably have said beer, though I now realise I’m thinking of Peroni.

So maybe not _terribly_ effective brand advertising, then.

It's not made to have you go buy tires, but to remember them when you're at a tire shop and see them on the shelf.

This. When you get the call saying you need new tyres and they list 2 brands you’ve never heard of and Pirelli there’s a greater chance you’ll pay the premium over an unknown.

I had a similar reaction when redoing our kitchen. The chap listed some meaningless flooring brands to me. Except one of them was Quick-Step…

“Like the pro cycling team?!” says I like a big kid.

Guess what we walk on in our kitchen now?

Plus I get to tell all my cycling buddies whenever they come round for the first time.

Same goes for silicone window sealant. The brands mean nothing to an amateur like me but when I see Soudal brand at the store I think of the cycling team and so that’s the brand I buy.

Only for the record, for about 20-25 years (between roughly 1990 and 2015) Pirelli was active in many fields besides tyres, including:

real estate -> now Prelios

electric and fibre cables -> now Prysmian

coated steel cables -> then sold to Bekaert

glasses and optical systems -> then sold to Corning and Cisco

Nowadays the focus is on tyres and the property is essentially Chinese (Chemchina).

In the mentioned years they also made broadband (ADSL) modem/routers, clothing, design glasses, and what not.

Pirelli is based in Milan.

It is sponsoring the older home town team.

mmmh, no? AC Milan is the older (1899), Inter seccessed from it in 1908.

Yes, I was wrong.

Do you think cosmic rays could have flipped that least important bit in my comment?

Well if you are a fan, that is _not_ the least important bit in your comment ;)

My car came with higher end perellis. Was not that impressed by them, but could be my bad luck.

After hitting a fairly big pot hole, it caused a major bubble to form on the side of the rubber. Switched them out for Michelin and haven't had an issue 2 sets later

It's almost like the F1 tires have nothing to do with the consumer tires.. hmm.

Brand failure? I think so.

My Michelin's are fine and grip effectively.

Yup, not going to see pot holes on the streets they race formula one (I hope).

What's the problem? Just do a pit stop, get the wheels changed in 2.5s and get back on the street in no time. The other drivers have to come in as well.

Michelin is another interesting one with their whole Michelin Star food/restaurant thing.

I have no citation for this, but it seems like Michelin guides started off as advertising (to get people driving in France during early adoption of cars) but is probably now a separate (presumably profitable) business.

The Michelin guide still uses the Michelin man and the stylistic iconography of the tire brand as theirs. I believe they’re still fully integrated

Yes, it was to get people driving more.

1 Michelin Star = worth stopping for

2 Stars = worth a detour

3 Stars = worth a trip just to eat there

If you recognize the brand but have never been inclined to make a purchase... it hasn't worked.

if a larger number of people purchased the product only after the campaign started, even if GP didn't purchase, the campaign has worked.

Sometimes the point of the advertising is to make you ignore its competitors.

We both know what Patek Philippe and Bugatti are, have you ever wanted to buy one?

Actually I only know the latter, not the former, and no. However, the point was that if the advertisement does not incline me to buy because of the sheer absurdity of its location and timing then it doesn't work. Shotgunning ad dollars at random shit and hoping it works is how we get spam.

you are getting downvoted but i learned something from your comment

I dont think you can judge all Ad ROI on thr basis of pure unit purchases. I'd argue the key metric is gross dollars.

Why? Because if an ad campaign by bugatti elevated the price point bt which existing customers buy, just based on perception of nonbuying customers... Then that is a success

The only way that could be valid is if the price one was willing to pay was positively influenced by nonbuyers, i.e. even if someone else doesn't want to buy it they regard it as some manner of status symbol and, therefore, influence you to pay a higher price for it. I do not regard a bugatti as such, but your mileage may vary.

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