From advertisement to entertisement

THE BMW CASE

 P.A.Lolkema

9936785

CIW

Participatory Culture

Docent: CLASSIFIED

25-06-2004

When looking at ‘The Hire’ series from BMW, we see it’s not an usual way of advertising. Something made the brand change its strategy and spend a lot of money at an online moviemaking project of which the results couldn’t have been clear at the start. According to Martin Hellhake, Fabian Henault, and Josh Jacob from Temple university this has to do with the fact that other brands were copying their advertising strategy which holds within its boundaries the reliability of the car. The so called ‘look and feel’ strategy was copied, so BMW had to take a step to get ahead of its concurrents.[i]

But Tom Matano, Director of the school of design and Academy of Art College San Fransisco states that BMW had to redefine its position because Mercedes-Benz took more ‘sportier’ models into production, like the new S-class and Audi had established modern Teutonic direction[ii].

Before getting further into a discussion about what made BMW change its advertisement strategy being a step ahead or a step behind, the BMW buyer will now be discussed.

Who is or will be the BMW Buyer?

Before looking closer at the BMW films it is important to look at who its customers are. Who are the typical BMW buyers that BMW is trying to reach by their campaigns.

Because more than two-thirds of the buyers of BMW’s are repeat customers, the firm can put its prices 10 till 30 percent above the market in relation to comparable models.

Wealthy babt boomers are now the main target audience, followed by the generation X.[iii]

First of all it is important to notice that these baby boomers, now between 43 and 58 are starting to think about their retirement and generation X is taking over. This generation was born between 1961 and 1976, and is growing in importance in our society. The boomers still beat the Xers in economic, cultural and social influence stakes, because they own all the infrastructure. Only ten percent of the infrastructure had to be upped to accommodate the Xers.[iv] Nonetheless the generation X’ers are slowly taking over from the baby boomers and know that they will rely on themselves instead of having a safety platform in the shape of Social Security and retirement funds that the baby boomers have. Knowing this will not last for the day they will retire, these young X’ers start saving some money at a young fase of their lifes. They will be economicly conservative to make sure their future is safe.

The following dot-comers, who are now in their twenties will be even more business orientated than the the X’ers. They would prefer to own a business more than to work high in one. It are these two generations that will supply the new BMW buyers. These generations will learn their entire life and live on challenge and opportunity. The thing they look for in a product is customer service improvement.[v]

Because of this shifting target audiences, the designs also changed in relation to the lines that were followed till now. Cars are starting to look more sporty and come within all ranges. Customers want to be able to choose. BMW started to broaden its productline with the Z3 roadster and the X5 sport utility[vi]. Even the X3 and the new MINI are part of this broadening offer. The latest model of this broadening is the BMW 1. This model does serve the self-orientated generation X’er and the dot-comer.  

Now it is clear that the target audience is shifting to a new generation of hard working self-orientated X’ers and dot-comers, it is important to look at what BMW stood for. What was their aproach with advertisement. How were they trying to get hold of their buyers. By knowing this, a glimp can be taken of the strategy that BMW is using to atract potential buyers.

What came before ‘the Hire’ series ?

To see what is meant with the ‘look and feel’ strategy, a few older advertisements are shown in this chapter. Of course these are not fully comparible with the Internet films BMW makes nowadays, but there is something in them to learn.

When we look at the advertisement of the 850i from 1991 we see that the car is only shown from the front. It seems the advertisement isn’t wholy about the car, but wants to create a feeling of luxury and power. Nothing is being said about how fast it goes or how safe it is. The only thing mentioned is ‘more smiles per hour’. It is a clear way of branding. The look and feeling are created by placing mountains behind the car. This blue surroundings make the red car jump out of the picture. 

Bron: http://www.autotrend.com/pic/752.jpg

When looking at a BMW from a few years later, it seems obvious little has changed. Again this advertisement shows a car from the front. The viewpoint is from below, so the viewer will experience a feeling of power. The close up shot from the front of the car creates an ‘in your face’ feeling. In this  advertisement a dark feeling is created by placing the car in a dark thundercloud alike surrounding. This makes the contrast of the car strong, but does not take the attention away from the vehicle. A thing BMW did verry well in both commercials is showing the front of the car with the characteristic grill and nose. Strangely enough, the side and the back of the car are not shown[vii]. It seems not to be about the car, but about the feeling it leaves behind. One will not want to drive an other car than the BMW, just because it feels good.

Bron: http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~paley/spring03/assignments/HW1/sz184/BMW.gif

There is one thing that will be mentioned in this chapter and that is explaining why associations are important. A brand van be visually representated within the consumer’s head as a network of thoughts or associations. BMW offers in this case driving excitement, performance, and fine engineering[viii]. The reason of this association creating is that these associations must be in the head of the consumer. BMW is in this case an image brand. This means that it is mostly dealing with projecting an image, because their product is highly vissible to others[ix].

Now that is discussed that BMW tries to sell a look and feeling to its customers instead of giving the pre’s of the car, a look can be taken at the new kind of advertising BMW is using nowadays thrue the BMW films.

‘The Hire’ series. Continuďty

Martin Hellhake, Fabian Henault, and Josh Jacob from Temple university state that BMW was looking for an advertisement that would make them hip and took away the yuppie arrogance of the 80s. The company had always putted its believe in four core values: Technology, Quality, Performance and exclusivity. All these core values are also seen in the series of short movies BMW shows us at their site. The car outruns every opponent, is chosen for stars and Buddhist monks, shows great technological prestations and never breaks down. In all of these movies Clive Owen, a slight handsome and James Bond alike man is the driver, allthough the cars are the real heroes of the show.

This hip image isn’t that new anymore. BMW started to attach its brand to the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies of which the stars performed via MGM in advertisements from Heineken, Smirnoff, Visa, Ericsson and BMW. These five companies spent about 100 dollar on the campaign[x].

The difference, apart from that ‘the Hire’ series are exclusively for BMW, is that ‘the Hire’ series is only shown on the Internet and at the BMW dealership. This is strange when noticing the expensive technologies used and the wellknown directors of alternative movies, like Joe Carnahan, John Woo and Tony Scott  and stars are attached to the movies. Instead of showing it on television they built a flashy site with a fine streaming possibility. The way they’ve promoted it is via trailers on television that say to go and look at BMWfilms.com.

How is the serie situated?

Clive Owen is a driver, in several BMW’s, in each of the episodes and needs to rescue someone, in which he always succeeds. Racing hard through the streets, being chased by bad guys, he always stays calm and knows the car will help him to win. The way in which they show that the car is the best in the field, is by driving around stars, monks, a heart for an important person and a man with diamonds. All trust their lifes and their belongings to the car and its driver. The main part of the films exists of shots from inside the car or shots from the exterior. The viewer sees the car flying around corners, accelarate with burning rubber, fly through the air, or just going to fast.

No matter how hard the cars drive and how much dirt is on the road, the car always looks shiny and new, except for a small part in the chase when dirt is part of the movie. Clive is driving a small dirtroad, makes a 180 handbreak turn and waits for its contestor to crash against a big roadworking machine and explode[xi].

In the entire series they do not mention the brand name. Nobody tells they are riding around in a BMW or is trying to convince the viewer that it is the greatest car in the entire world. Fact is though that they don’t driver other cars than BMW’s and the viewer can not think of driving an other car than the BMW after watching it becoming the hero of another episode.

Why this kind of advertising ?

To see why they chose to do this kind of advertisement, Martin Hellhake, Fabian Henault, and Josh Jacob from Temple university, state:

“It is a well known among advertising firms that over 85% of potential car buyers will conduct most (if not all) of their initial research on the Internet before they make a final decision on a purchase.”[xii]

As Jim McDowell, vice president of marketing for BMW North America states it, its difficult to find network television that attracts a cluster of their prospects and that is why they choose any way to get closer to them. Film is not that expensive in this way if you imagine that a television advertisement costs a lot per time it is showed and the production of the films may cost ten million dollars, while the distributing only costs 1 million dollars[xiii].

Now it is clear that brands find it hard to attract their costumers and try finding them thrue the Internet it is important to see how they try to find them.

As Alex Hendler, creative director of Modem Media sees it, there are three trends that replace the banner on the Internet. He states that the banner lost its effect because people are surfing to fast and do not take the time to read banners that take 5 seconds of their time. Instead advertisement should adjust to consumers wants. This can be accomplished in three different ways, namely:

·         Creating compelling experiences

·         Offering them some kind of tool or utility

·         Allowing them to indicate what they want to hear about- a new-fangled form of pull marketing[xiv]

With creating compelling experiences he mentions ‘the Hire’ as a consumerattractor because consumers knew they were going to see high standard entertainment by first class directors and stars. It is interesting to argue why they have chosen these wellknown ‘underground’ directors like John Frankenheimer (Ronin) instead of directors that are more famous to bigger crowds like Steven Spielberg or Gus van Sant.

The offering of a utility comes to play in the carshaper on the bmw site. Consumers can click on gadgets and see how they look when implemented in the car. This is a useful utility for the consumers, because in this way they can see how their car will be when buying these gadgets.

Pull marketing is done by searchengines. When somebody enters a search, the advertisements look like searchresults and often come in handy for the users. This part of advertising is not part of this research.

The fifth value

But what weight the heaviest from these motifs for the film as type of advertisement. Being exclusive does match the brands perimeters. An average at 30.000 dollar, and someone who spends that amount of money has the Internet connection. But looking at the brands organisation culture, the question is if they could just change their image to the outside without changing on the inside. This needs to be examinated further in the future, but it is of importance to briefly explain what the point made here is about.

When looking at a corporate culture, there are three subdivisions to be made. First of all there are artefacts, which point out what happens on the inside. Internal stories, the fysical surrounding and the style of communication. Secondly there are the espoused values. These are officially expressed strategies, goals and philosophies. In this categorie the industries often show how they would like to be ideally. The third and also the last are the basic assumptions, what the company takes for granted. An unconsciousness which makes it difficult to see, because it is hidden and seldom confronted[xv].

Little can be said about the artefacts, but more about the espoused values. As already mentioned, BMW wants to show the outside that the brand had always stood for the core values technology, quality, performance and exclusivity and still stands for those. It seems that nothing has changed. What quickly is forgotten is that the advertisements go beyond that. An extra core value is implemented and that is experience. With this new way of advertising BMW wants to leave a feeling with the consumer. This is also vissible at the BMW site, where an option is available in which you can see the BMW 5-series driving thrue desserts and other mystic places with a lounge beat on the background. The new BMW 1-series shows a looped clip of a loungy trip through the country and the cities at night, with on the background. BMW wants to give an experience that makes you feel good and let’s you dream away with the car. The flashmovies show this and the experience decription with all the cars two[xvi].

When taking this experience with the BMWfilms series, more becomes clear. What they are trying to do is to change our basic assumptions of the brand BMW. They want to create a bond between feeling good and BMW. The hip lounge music on their site, together with the flash movies, the films, BMW is an experience. When someone sees a BMW they feel good.