BMW: DRIVING ULTIMATE HUMAN PEFORMANCE

Credits & Description:

Advertiser: BMW OF NORTH AMERICA
Agency: FLEISHMAN-HILLARD
Category: Automotive and Transport
Advertising campaign: DRIVING ULTIMATE HUMAN PEFORMANCE
Managing Supervisor: Carol Quito (Fleishman-Hillard)
Senior Vice President/Partner: Dan Stevens (Fleishman-Hillard)
Account Executive: Jory Mendes (Fleishman-Hillard)
President/Senior Partner/US West Region: JJ Carter (Fleishman-Hillard)
Account Executive: Megan Morales (Fleishman-Hillard)
Vice President: Dianna Kraus (Fleishman-Hillard)

Relevancy
BMW’s approach to sports marketing has evolved. Through research, BMW identified the Olympic Games as the event that most embodied the strengths of its brand: performance, precision, excellence. Signing agreements with London 2012, National Organizing Committees and four U.S. National Governing Bodies, BMW also created its first athlete program supporting 11 U.S. athletes (“BMW Performance Team”).BMW created a platform to maximize its investment, with just one qualifier: sponsorship alone meant nothing unless it connected to the performance heritage of BMW and merged deep into the muscle of the Olympics.

Strategy
As BMW engineers perfected training tools, communications focused on a storytelling campaign strategy that put the BMW Performance Team front and center, illustrating the shared performance goals of the Ultimate Driving Machine and the ultimate athlete. Our strategy revolved around three storytelling pillars, each affording BMW the opportunity to reinforce its messaging: technology (BMW training tools), brand (value of sponsorship) and the Olympic Games (BMW activation). In the year leading up to the Games, stories for each pillar showcased the intersection of BMW engineering and athlete performance. Human interest themes drove the campaign, bringing to life the trials and triumphs of the athlete’s journey to compete on the world’s biggest stage, underscoring the obsession with pinpoint performance shared with BMW.

Execution
Activation included: New York Launch. Unveiled BMW’s “technology transfer” commitment and Performance Team at one-year-out press event.Technology Stories. Media tours at BMW lab and Olympic Training Centers during development process with BMW engineers and Olympians.Product Launch Showcase. Promoted vehicle-to-athlete connection to writers at vehicle launches to differentiate BMW technology, engage them in campaign.Performance Team Features. Interviews on performance journey and BMW technology contributions.Social Media. BMW social channels reskinned for the Olympics, athlete mantra videos and content developed to engage consumers.100-Days-Out Media Tour. BMW CEO with athletes discussed BMW’s contributions; USOC’s Times Square event presence.BMW Drive for Team USA Fundraisers. At dealerships nationwide, consumers met Olympians and test-drove BMWs; per drive, BMW donated $10 to Team USA. 2012 London Olympic Games. Offered BMW CEO interviews, athlete training features, first access to BMW Performance Team athletes. Promoted brand activations such as “Mini MINIs” and Olympic Fleet.

Client Brief Or Objective
•Leverage Olympic sponsorship to raise brand affinity and appeal to new audiences to drive trial and increase conversion rates •Demonstrate BMW’s passion for engineering by applying expertise to develop athlete training tools, giving consumers a new way to experience BMW’s performance leadership•Create opportunity to build business and support partner programs through premium sponsorship activationResearch showed that BMW’s target audience included passionate fans of the Olympics and BMW’s four sport partners. Emerging from this was the technology transfer idea of BMW’s engineering expertise to athlete performance as a very powerful way to engage consumers.

Effectiveness
By Closing Ceremonies, 782 million people experienced BMW’s dedication to performance through 260 stories in top-tier media channels such as The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Associated Press, Autoweek, CNN, CNBC, Good Morning America, and Vanity Fair.BMW Drive for Team USA fundraising events were attended by 28,000 customers, with one in four attendees purchasing a BMW – the highest conversion rate in BMW history. A full 92% of BMW retailers opted in to participate, and 99% leveraged Olympic creative in POS materials and local advertising. BMWUSA.com experienced a 57% increase in site visits year-over-year, with 54% of traffic from first-time visitors, and a 30% increase in “build your own” leads, which typically convert at a higher rate.BMW also created a lasting impact on Team USA. Coaches and athletes are today using BMW's training tools at Olympic Training Centers to help the next generation of champions.

Campaign Description
The value of an Olympic sponsorship is gold. But what happens when a sponsor applies its automotive expertise to help athletes fire on all cylinders? To elevate its brand and showcase its commitment to automotive engineering, BMW brought its vehicle technology to athletes to help them train more effectively and maximize their own aerodynamics and velocity for improved timing and performance. Through this “technology transfer,” BMW is helping long jumpers jump farther and swimmers kick smarter.Equating an athlete’s body with vehicle aerodynamics, BMW’s engineers developed customized training tools that target specific moments when medals are won and lost. A BMW camera system, for example, provided immediate images and calculations of three key parameters in the execution of a long jump – horizontal velocity, vertical velocity and take-off angle – to help cut tiny fractions off crucial seconds. Athletes and coaches now have instant performance playback data, eliminating the norm of waiting days for manual calculations. By then, the athlete’s memory was cold; the feedback stale. BMW employed a storytelling campaign that gave media behind-the-scenes access to the tools being used at Olympic training facilities and BMW labs, and hosted a nationwide fundraising drive campaign to engage with consumers, providing first access to gold-winning athletes at the 2012 London Games.BMW delivered breakthrough tools that will permanently change the way athletes train and perform. It reached millions of target car buyers during the campaign and converted one in four attendees of Drive for Team USA events into BMW owners.