The ‘BMW Giving Way’: The first BMW logo stickers to give competitive drivers the ultimate sense of BMW exclusivity.
Moscow is notorious for its traffic jams and getting pleasure from the speed and manoeuvrability of cars is virtually impossible. Equally importantly even owners of premium cars in Russia do not like paying for unnecessary parking and toll charges which have been rising steeply in recent times.
To celebrate its 100 years anniversary BMW treated its customers with the first free of charge tollbooth on the brand new M11 highway to the main city airport. Responding immediately to competitors’ drivers’ desires to get the same benefit, the brand provided printable logo stickers so that even they could ‘become a BMW’ and avail of the free exclusive driving experience while becoming a free media channel for BMW.
Creative Execution
The offer was promoted on automotive, news and lifestyle websites and forums (e.g. drive.ru, motor.ru, auto.vesti.ru, newinform.com, autorambler.ru, vc.ru, gazeta.ru, 360tv.ru etc.).
BMW created specially customised logo stickers on its social media pages. These were designed to fit exactly on the logos of competitor brands. After sticking the logos, competitors’ cars could drive past the reserved fast track BMW tollbooth without paying any charges, as if it was an actual BMW. Cashiers were instructed to let any car with a BMW logo pass for free.
The campaign started in June 2016 and lasted till the end of summer.
Over 342 051 drivers benefitted from the unique offer.
More than 4 million cars of all the brands saw the unique offer driving M-11.
6% more cars were sold in the declining market vs. the previous period.
More than 70 FREE of charge articles in Internet media (on Russian websites such as https://vc.ru/p/bmw-m11 and even on German ones such as https://www.wuv.de/marketing/so_ueberzeugt_bmw_in_moskau_selbst_audi_fans), press, TV within 2 days after the project started.
15 million media impressions.
In social media >200,000 organic reach, more than 10,000 interactions.
Brand perception rose among competitors (2016 vs. 2015):
• Aided brand awareness 33% vs. 30%
• Aided advertising awareness 24% vs. 18.7%
• Unaided advertising awareness 38% vs. 29%
Zero budget stickers promotion
Mercedes Benz followed BMW’s innovative example by providing free parking to drivers of Mercedes and other premium brands at Sheremetyevo Airport in December 2016.
Communication clutter in automotive segment in Russia is extremely high. Traditional advertising and media formats are losing power. Media innovations that are cost-efficient, targeted and impactful are the order of the day. BMW created an unconventional media format and channel never seen before in the segment to raise awareness, favourable opinion and loyalty. It was the BMW brand badge itself which when stuck on competitor cars’ badges, made the most formidable competitors the very source of free media for itself! It provided focused reach among a captive audience and a catalysing inspiration for communication activity of its main competitor.
Insights, Strategy and the Idea
The main target audience of the campaign were drivers of premium cars - those who are highly involved with their cars and driving experiences, always interested in the developments, innovations and offers provided by different brands and actively researching and discussing these topics on social media forums.
BMW promoted awareness of the free ride on websites and forums that had the highest reach among its current and potential customers including owners of competitor cars. In addition thousands of fliers were distributed.
The media plan was designed to trigger deeper interest in the brand leading competitors’ drivers to find out more on BMW’s social media pages. This became the main site of awareness building for the mechanism of availing the free offer for competitors’ cars at zero-cost. From there on, competitor drivers who availed the offer transformed their cars as free media for advertising the BMW brand.