An Ode To Blue
Hi Friends!
Although, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m starting to get really burned out on email (yeah, probably not something I should say out loud here, I know), I still really love getting the actual mail every day. Sure, it’s equally filled with garbage most of the time, but it still feels a little bit more like a quest and a treasure hunt and it gets me on my feet and out of my office.
Usually, the mail shows up right in the middle of the workday, so retrieving it kind of forces me to take a break and I’ve actually sort of built daily rituals around this as a result. I go outside and generally walk the northern part of my property, check plants, security gates on animals and things like that. Then I hike up the street to the mailboxes. I never look at anything as soon as I get it, as when I return to my house, I always walk the southern part of my property and sit in one of the gardens located there, wherein I’ve got a spot that I’ve sort of specified to sit down and open things up.
A couple of weeks back, I received my annual fold out mailer from Gooding Christie’s showcasing top offerings from their upcoming Pebble Beach sale. As usual, it was beautifully presented, with outstanding materials and featured wonderful cars (if you haven’t checked out their 2025 catalog yet, definitely do so. It’s excellent). However, something was different. Gone was the cool blue that’s been so synonymous with their brand for so long. Cloaking it in all the usual areas, it was now adorned with Christie’s red. I’ll be honest, I was a little taken aback.
It’s hard to deny how excellent Gooding’s branding has been over the years. It’s arguably the best of anybody’s in this space anywhere. Clean, ultra stylish, with mountains of mid-century flair, it’s not only defined them visually in print and online, but it also tells you exactly what you’re in for once you arrive at one of their events.
When you walk into the tent at Gooding it’s always an experience and it’s like entering a different world. Fabulously curated cars, displayed intentionally with the stage peeking out at you from just beyond the curtains. Set in the style of a late 1950s/early 1960s news show, more than any other active auction company in the world today, Gooding doesn’t just sell cars. They put on a show, they entertain and they are great at it.
However, there’s always been one factor that’s dictated flow of everything surrounding Gooding. That’s been the cool blue that drapes your subconscious in every ad, on every video and most notably at every event. Simply put, Gooding blue dominates your mood and changes your perception of everything when you encounter it. This has been a significant part of their company’s identity and I’ve always felt that it tied everything together masterfully. I’m not sure they can accomplish the same thing with any other color.
Obviously, since the merger of these two brands, things were going to be modified and were going to change. I think it’s pretty clear that a lot of what has changed so far has been very positive too. Again, their catalog for Pebble Beach 2025 really speaks for itself. The grouping of cars that they’ve assembled for this year’s event are fantastic. I also think the way that they’re presenting the logo now is very good. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen anything that they’ve done that I haven’t liked up until this point.
I started poking around on this a little bit shortly after I received the postcard (and of course since all the social media, website and digital channels have changed over as well) and was assured that basically nothing else was going to be different and then all the stuff that made Gooding so great before would still be present, but enhanced. I suspect a lot of that is correct. There’s assuredly an inflow of cash that has occurred and Gooding is very clearly still being run by very smart people, so one would think more money means more ability to flex creative muscles, which should indicate more cool stuff ahead. I don’t know how they maintain that feeling you get when you walk in their tent however and I don’t know how they keep their on-stage presentation looking like a swanky newscast and not like a cheeky game show.
I certainly hope that this turns out to be a “more things change, the more they stay the same” type situation, but we’ll see. It’s safe to assume that this wasn’t something that didn’t receive a significant amount of thought and as carefully curated as their events always are, it’s probably also safe to assume that they will figure out how to make it work. This said though, I love the blue, I always loved the blue, I’ve always thought that it was a significant part of Gooding’s coolness factor and I’m very sad to see it go.
That’s it for this week……
Darin Roberge