BMW’s“The Company of Ideas”

Campaign

Major and Minor issues

Major Issues

• The ad campaign focused primarily on the culture of innovation and design prowess that BMW cultivated and was a significant departure from its earlier communications.

• From “ the Ultimate Driving Machine” to “the Company of Ideas”.

Major Issues

• The campaign aimed repositioning the brand to appeal the wider spectrum of the affluent class (the creative class) going beyond the yuppies.

Major Issues• A research revealed that more then 75%

of people in US didn’t consider BMW as their first choice for luxury cars.

• BMW felt that if it had to increase its market share it had to communicate what went into creating the “ultimate driving machine” so that creative class can associate themselves with the brand.

At BMW ideas are everything and we make sure great ideas live on to

become the “ultimate driving machines”

We can say NO to compromises, we can say yes to great ideas.

Minor Issues

• The campaign received criticism from most of the quarters and experts felt that the campaign could dilute the values that the brand stood for, by entering “the new age marketing mumbo jumbo”.

Minor Issues

• The curvy car designs that the new design chief Mr. Bangle encouraged, drew a lot of criticism.

Minor Issues

• The strategy of veiled competitor bashing in the BMW campaign was not appreciated by many.

• In spite of the strong performance in the previous years BMW took up this major departure of its marketing strategy.

Recommendations

• In addition to the advertising agency, BMW should have hired a Public Relations Agency to take care of criticisms.

• A company of BMW’s stature should not have engaged in veiled competitor bashing as it could annoy the “creative class”.

Thank you

Now take a BMW ride!!!