Putting their own spin on the traditional tire store, Pirelli Tire North America opened the doors of its new P Zero World on June 15. The new retail pilot store translates Pirelli’s luxury-brand approach into its first-ever brick-and-mortar location, combining retail, service and corporate offices into one place. The company hopes this corporate-to-consumer combination will support the faster development and testing of business practices to better engage higher-end consumers.
Located on Santa Monica Boulevard near Beverly Hills, Calif., the space itself is infused with the art and eye candy you’d expect from the iconic brand. The 8,000-square-foot, three-bay location features an open concept waiting area complete with exotic supercars, an espresso bar and store displays to showcase Pirelli’s additional product lines. Inside, Pirelli’s legendary calendar images, fan gear, motorsports history and OE partnerships provide visual entertainment for brand enthusiasts. Races and other Pirelli images flash across a wall of screens. Light fixtures resembling Pirelli tires are mounted to the shop’s ceiling, lighting a row of exquisite vehicles. Tread patterns adorn the interior columns. Outside, the updated service bays feature new state-of-the-art equipment by Hunter Engineering Co.
The new P Zero World is a continuation of strategy to maintain and increase its market share for the high and very high-end vehicle segment, highlighting their “perfect fit” philosophy of made-to-measure tires developed for each specific vehicle model in collaboration with the car makers’ own engineers.
Pirelli’s current prestige strategy is centered on the fast-growing sports and luxury car segment– a market Pirelli hopes to dominate. The company sees the premium vehicle segment expanding at a greater rate globally.
In the U.S. they anticipate forecasted growth of 11% for the prestige vehicle segment in 2016 alone. This strategy has driven Pirelli leadership to focus on being selected as original equipment for high and very high-end cars where they currently have an estimated 50% share of market.
The company chose Los Angeles for its flagship location as it has the highest concentration of luxury and sports cars in the world. Geotargeting and advanced digital marketing approaches will be used to appropriately connect consumers with the brand and its dealers. The location also plans to experiment with specialized white-glove services, such as vehicle valet-style pickup services at residences or offices for appointments and other conveniences that would be appreciated by the high-consideration segment.
“P Zero World will be a game changer for the tire retail industry, just like its namesake, the iconic P Zero tire…The location aims to deliver a unique shopping experience catered directly to high-end automotive enthusiasts,” said Paul Hembery, Pirelli’s global motorsports and prestige project director. “As a compliment, Los Angeles serves as the perfect backdrop for the launch of this project, as it provides the perfect mix of business related strategic elements – such as the high concentration of prestige vehicles – with an exciting and active car culture which produces passionate consumers and tastemakers; who are exactly the clientele that most appreciate the services and products that we offer.”
For the day-to-day at P Zero World, the company is partnering with Claus Ettensberger of CEC Wheels fame to manage the retail sales at P Zero World. Ettensberger is well known by luxury car enthusiasts in the Beverly Hills area.
“The location aims to deliver a unique shopping experience catered directly to high-end automotive enthusiasts. His knowledge of the market and its clientele is indispensable in our new endeavor,” added Hembery.
The luxury interior of P Zero World was designed by Pierluigi Bonvicini, a renowned high-end retail architect whose clients globally include Rolex, MaxMara, Mercedes Benz, Bottega Veneta and Benetton, to name a few. Bonvicini told Tire Review that he sees the final product as “functional art,” which explains much of the detail that went into its design.
“What I love about the brand and about this space is that it’s all about ideas, it’s all about energy,” Bonvicini told Tire Review. “When energy flows you can do miracles. When energy doesn’t flow, then every little ripple becomes a problem. You have the sense here that you can see things in a new light.”
He went on to say that those who drive the prestige vehicles, who are Pirelli customers, are among the best in the world, so the space needed to feed off of their expectations for a customer experience as well as focus the attention around the product design, using a museum-like aesthetic.
“This new venture is part of an aggressive growth plan for Pirelli in North America and beyond,” said Pierluigi Dinelli, CEO and chairman of Pirelli Tire North America. “P Zero World perfectly expresses our deep appreciation and nuanced understanding of car culture and we’re excited to serve our customers here…. P Zero World also speaks to a key part of Pirelli’s unique approach to the market – the strong expression of our corporate identity, which is tied deeply to both the innovative and the experiential. This new initiative brings the concept full circle with retail at the very heart of the brand.”
According to Rafael Navarro, senior vice president of prestige automotive, motorsports and communications, the company plans to take time to test and learn before rolling out concepts to their dealer base. “I expect it will take about six months to roll out what we learn to our other dealers,” he said. He added this not as a threat to the existing dealer base but as a means to gain a stronger connection with the Pirelli customer to learn more about how to serve them better so that knowledge can be transferred for better brand advocacy.
Additional P Zero World locations are planned. Though Navarro would not disclose specific future locations, he said they will center around areas of high concentration of high-end luxury vehicle ownership globally.
