2015 Branded Content & Entertainment

MINI JOHN COOPER WORKS: A JET ON 4-WHEELS

TitleMINI JOHN COOPER WORKS: A JET ON 4-WHEELS
BrandMINI
Product/ServiceMINI JOHN COOPER WORKS:
Category A01. Fiction: series or film
Entrant Company M&C SAATCHI Milan, ITALY
Contributing Company M&C SAATCHI Milan, ITALY
Media Agency VIZEUM Milan, ITALY
Production Company BEAUTIFULLY SIMPLE Milan, ITALY
Credits
Name Company Position
Luca Scotto di Carlo M/c Saatchi Spa Creative Director and Partner
Vincenzo Gasbarro M/c Saatchi Spa Creative Director and Partner
Armando Viale M/c Saatchi Spa Deputy Creative Director
Matteo Grandese M/c Saatchi Spa Deputy Creative Director
Armando Viale M/c Saatchi Spa Art Director
Matteo Grandese M/c Saatchi Spa Copywriter
Roberto Ardigò M/c Saatchi Spa Art Director
Massimo Capucci M/c Saatchi Spa Head of Planning
Marta Pettenuzzo M/c Saatchi Spa Integrated Campaign Project Manager
Ludovica Arci M/c Saatchi Spa Account
Federico Fornasari M/c Saatchi Spa Production Director
Basement Production Company
Vittorio Bonaffini Director
Edoardo Bolli DOP Lighting Cameraman
Manuel Savoia Editor
Francesco Crespi Executive Producer
The Hidden Mountain Music
Cristiano Rinaldi Digital Artist
Vizeum Media Agen

The Campaign

To launch the brand new MINI John Cooper Works - the most powerful MINI ever - we’ve been asked to create extra visibility for the car, despite a limited media budget dedicated to this niche model. Starting from a unique creative concept (A jet on four wheels), we decided to make something as crazy as potentially talk-able: make the MINI fly, or at least we let the whole Italy believe so. Not an ordinary flight though. We made it flight from Calabria to Sicily (3.1 Km), ideally unifying these two lands, giving a solution to a long time Italian issue. Actually, one of the greatest: “Il ponte sullo stretto” (“The strait Bridge”). Where generations of politicians failed, MINI succeeded. The full length web film narrates the whole story: technical studies, preliminary tests, interviews, behind the scenes, and of course the “mysterious” flight across the strait with its glorious landing. Together with branded content, the campaign also included many other touch-points that reinforced the "jet on four wheels" idea. In particular, a special 3D billboard was installed in the airport of Linate, featuring a real MINI John Cooper Works car, virtually accessible with a real plane staircase, with the claim "Ready to take off". In addition, a promo activation was also implemented to generate leads with hostessed dressed as flight assistant. To enhance all this even further the campaign also included print, radio (simulating an airport announcement) and car test drives in airport hangars.

All the national news websites and car magazines pages talked about it and posted the full length video, adding up to more than 1.000.000 views in few days (quite remarkable, compared to the size of the market niche).

To introduce the most powerful MINI ever and the celebrated car-maker John Cooper, a unbranded documentary was released to tell the story of two MINI car-experts, and their achievement: symbolically uniting Calabria and Sicily by flying across the Strait of Messina on board the new MINI. The line between reality and fiction is blurry, and the description of the car features is integrated naturally in the story. The video generated interests because of the relevance of the topic in Italy, an issue debated by politicians, media, and economists. The release strategy involved a phase one with unbranded leaks of the video and evidences from real witnesses and then a second phase with the release of the documentary that was not signed by MINI but shared by the brand to celebrate these "heroes". In addition digital assets such website of the workshop of car-makers, made the story even more realistic.