BMW Mobile Video Campaign with Rhythm Drives Traffic

German luxury automaker BMW's mobile advertising campaign for the new BMW 1 Series Coupe resulted in a 67 percent increase in traffic to the brand's WAP site for Britain. 

Begun in September, the campaign was designed to increase brand awareness of the new model and encourage mobile consumers to sign up for a test drive, request a brochure, find their local dealership or get more information. BMW chose Rhythm NewMedia for the mobile campaign with a call-to-action in mobile video pre-roll ads placed within Rhythm’s ad network using the media buying agency Zed Media.

“BMW was looking to get the word out about this new model car to 24-to-34-year-olds who are mostly tech-savvy and busy individuals,” he said. “Mobile seemed like the logical way to go.”

The mobile aspect of the campaign had two elements

BMW mobile video campaign drives traffic

First, there were banner ads placed on the Rhythm network.
Users who clicked on the ad were routed to the BMW WAP site where they could get more information on the Series 1 Coupe.

The banner portion of the campaign allowed BMW to measure customer interest. The banner ads generated a 7.72 click-through rate average.

Overall, the BMW WAP site saw a 67 percent increase in traffic.

Rhythm also placed pre-roll ads into the videos on British wireless carrier 3 UK's site. Rhythm’s brand and call-to-action mobile video companion ad product offered the consumer information about the new car.

Because of Rhythm’s demographic information, BMW was able to add a targeted element to the campaign. The ads were served only to consumers ages 24-34.

“The car maker wanted to grow awareness of BMW to a new audience of consumers who have never bought one due to budgetary constraints,” Mr. Hanks said.

“This needed to be done without cluttering or distracting base customers with the new messaging and that is why we only played the ads for consumers 24-34,” he said. 

The video ads demonstrate the style and movement of the car and also reach consumers in a personal manner.

Additionally, consumers could watch a vast array of mobile video content ranging from news, sports, entertainment and movies on 3 UK due to ad funding.

Rhythm’s patent-pending measurement survey technology, which measures brand awareness metrics, found a 23 percent spontaneous-awareness recall.

Rhythm also found a 60 percent prompted-awareness recall and 54 percent correct brand-message attribution.

Also, 29 percent of those who saw the ads felt more positive about the brand afterwards.

Rhythm did a similar campaign with sportswear maker Puma to promote its soccer shoe and increased awareness of the Puma V1.08 product. Puma used Rhythm's mobile video ads to connect with consumers visually and to grow their connection with the brand (see story).

The same holds true for the BMW video ads. BMW was able to connect with consumers visually. After all, who wants to even consider buying a car unless they have seen it?

“This car is the smallest of all of the BMW luxury cars and we wanted to outline that regardless of size, it still has the performance and efficiency of BMW, but in a smaller body,” Mr. Hanks
said.