A car brief. It’s one thing to do creative work for household brands but for a car brand it was definitely something to be part of. As part of our course trip to visit London based agencies we had the opportunity to be involved with a live brief from BMW. The agency that held their account, Table19, had asked us to submit and present our ideas in hopes of being rewarded with some work experience.
The brief asked us firstly to understand the target market that was summed up in a consumer profile with the average name being Brian.
“He’s a golf man. A family man. And a very hard-working man.
But he’s not much of a car man.
Don’t be mistaken - he likes to be seen in a good looking motor. And, as he’s lucky enough to have the money, a nice new reliable model is something he could be very interested in.
He’s had a few BMWs in the past, and his friend Dan keeps banging on about his.
So Brian’s decided to visit the BMW website. And he’s ready to treat himself.”
The brief was set for us to create the ultimate journey that would put Brian in the driving seat before he’s even thought about buying the car.
So after discussing the brief with my creative partner, he told me a story of a car crash that occurred in South Africa which involved him pulling out into a busy road and another car driving very fast crashed into the side of the car.
What we noticed with this story is that my creative partner had given a product demonstration and he actually convinced me that the reason BMW invest highly into the weight and durability of the doors is because if there is a mad man driving really fast and crashes into the side of your car, you better thank BMW for your life. So we thought how many other BMW users have stories like this? Are they feature-specific? Can we help other users in the same situation as Brian through a medium they would enjoy reading?
Hold up. That story sums up BMW and their heavy doors. Brian might have similar stories because he’s owned a few BMW’s in the past. There is a high chance he has had similar experiences that one day he might recollect upon. What if Brian is a loyal BMW owner and enjoys taking part in their golfing events and meeting others of the same social class? If 80% of all car purchases start online why are the salesmen in the retail outlets? Who is helping Brian on his journey for a new BMW?
So we identified our problem and made it clear to ourselves that the car builder is missing human interaction. Most customers already know the specifics of the car and have all of their questions answered before they even reach the store. What if creating your future car could be more than picking and choosing? What if the car builder can be like reading a magazine. A lengthy process that let’s say could be a Sunday activity while the kids are at the park?
After identifying the problem, we looked deeper into the psychology of the problem and find the mutual understanding that the BMW community has together. What we found is that BMW is not just the golf events on every second Sunday of every month, its not the fact that the kids are fast asleep in the backseat on the way there but the fact that this community is drawn together through mutual understanding of life and that is BMW. We found that there are so many people like Brian who have similar stories that have happened in previous cars.
Introducing the ‘Every car every story’ campaign. From the homepage we redesigned it to give it more interest. The cover picture illustrates one of the most fantastic BMW stories that involves a man who drove his old BMW across South Africa into Austria to scrap his car at the BMW shop. However, upon his arrival and the explanation of his journey BMW decided to host his car as part of the BMW museum. They rewarded him on his story.
When starting the car builder, highlighting a car will show a story and in this case involves a newly wedded couple who rented a BMW and loved it so much they bought it from the car rental service.
Further on, specs get more detailed whether it’s the engine, colour, seats and services such as satnav or Bluetooth connectors. How can we make these features stand out and more relevant to Brian?
Tyres. Why are tyres so important? Who, honestly could care less about putting more money into a car for, what is visible to the naked eye, a differently designed tyre that costs £500 more? Well in this case a story illustrates the difference between life and death and a grumpy stepfather who considers himself a better drives than Michael Schumaker.
When Brian gets past the car builder stage, he is given the DM Pack. This pack is crucial in the purchasing stages but what we found is that it was defined yet again by the car specifics. Copy can be summed up in four words, “drives better, because innovative.” It was loaded with corporate language and you felt like you were being spoken to by a salesman. We completely stripped it of its corporate nature and replaced it with more stories and left a bit of corporate tone to it in case there are people that actually enjoy that stuff. In addition, we decided to give more incentive to purchase by leaving a blank page at the end offering Brian to create his own story and be among all the other BMW users who have posted their stories in the car builder. Brian is invited for a test drive to create his story.
After a few months Brian is 99% sure he wants the car but hasn’t signed the deal. 99% is as good as 0%. The follow up email needs to give another boost of adrenaline and tip him in the 100% purchase area. This is done through the email which lets Brian know his story has been published and is among the hall of fame if BMW users.
Brian is redirected to the page where is story is visible and is given the option of creating more stories. The emotional attachment to his test drive will tip him in the 100% range.
During this brief we built on our feedback.
DISCLAIMER: This feedback was for our interim ideas that were scribbled on A3, scanned and sent. It is not the feedback for the finished idea.
Here it is:
“BMW CRM Feedback: I’ll be honest – I couldn’t really be bothered to read it. Please, next time we meet spent more than five minutes on it and use a computer, not Crayolas. Of what I did read, some wasn’t as bad as it looked, but you often stray away from the idea. If you could put more work into the ideas, as well as making sure you’re sticking to a CRM journey, it could be quite good. But there’s a long way to go. S&K”
You might think this is the worst feedback ever but really it proved to be to our advantage. Being compared to a five year old who discovered Crayolas in his first art class at least made us think that we had an imagination. Being remembered for something bad is better than not being remembered at all. So, using this to our advantage we knew Table19 do their own in house branding for example in the accounts sections they have a poster saying ‘profitable19.’ We created our own. Using Crayolas we created this image.
