Bmw Film Case

Individual case write-up:

Question: Was the BMW filmds idea a good idea, or bad idea? What were the risks associated with the idea? What was the motivation behind this idea?

BMW is a world wide German car manufacturer which in North America in late 80’s was in threat due to Japanese car manufacturer sales increase. BMW was not so competitive in other advantages as well, such as exclusive dealer network, service, CR, so BMW restructured itself and reached record sales in 2001. Now BMW could allow focusing on brand and decided to take the new approach to the advertising and make BMW Films with A-list film directors and actors, what leaded to over nine million films views in the website and BMW was set apart of its competitors.

In my opinion BMW Films was a good idea, due to several factors:

- it was unique positioning in the market of the car manufacturer to make the BMW car as an actor and to make ad as the media;

- this approach gained people’s attention and brand image building is directly target to that (nine million visited film site, more saw the movie from friends and rumors);

- this idea had strong first mover advantage because none of automotive competitors have done something like this before;

- as BMW buyers mostly before purchase checked information on internet, it was directly targeted to car buyers and combined film (TV approach) with internet;

- this approach broke convention that ads can be only short and typical. BMW Films was the great way how to associate the brand with its key selling points: driving performance, style, speed;

- BMW films.com visitors profile increased target audience of younger than 44 years old (82% of all who visited website).

Even though the idea was great, there were several risks behind it, what I would like to mention:

- median income for visitor in bmwfilms.com portal was lower than BMW customer median income (88 000 $ vs. 150 000 $) what leads to think that people who checked...