Quick, what's the first thing you think of when you hear 'BMW'?
Consistent design language? Martini liveries? Aggressive tailgating?
By any chance did 'Drag racing in Las Vegas to save the soul of James Brown from the Devil' come up at all?
No? Well it should have.
In the early 2000s BMW launched an advertising campaign that wasn't based on the release of a new model, instead focusing on branding and the concept of 'what makes a BMW a BMW'.
BMW already knew that their products were predominantly bought by people 46 years old with a yearly income of about $150,000 and married with no kids, but what they also found out was that about 85 per cent of these people used the internet before buying a Bimmer.
While this sounds like a weird statistic now, keep in mind this was in 2001. Back then a whole bunch of us were still using internet that had a booting-up sound and made you wait five minutes for a single image as it loaded bar by tedious bar. Back then loading an eight minute video was a luxury only a few could afford. Much like a fancy German automobile.
So BMW set up 'BMW films' and released 'The Hire', a series of short action/thriller films used to promote their cars. The films were advertised the same way feature films were and to watch them you had to sign up for the website where they were hosted, then stream them directly because, again, it was 2001 and YouTube was still another five years away, and even then we still had a few years of cat videos, trips to the zoo and 'EPIC FAIL' compilations before things got to where they are now.
'The Hire' was written as a series of different scripts and each one was selected by a director who then had complete creative control over the project. The one consistency was that each film was about five to 10 minutes long and focused on 'The Driver' (played by Clive Owen), as he completes jobs, while driving a variety of BMW vehicles.
Think 'The Transporter' but with less people getting kicked by Jason Statham.
Because each film had a different director, it gave them all a distinctive style. But if you're picturing this as a proving ground for plucky, as-then-unknown indie directors you may need to think again.
Have a look at the Wikipedia page. We're not just talking a moderately budgeted series of promo shorts here, we're talking full on, established, international auteurs: Ang Lee, John Frankenheimer, Wong Kar-Wai, Alejandro Iñárritu and Guy Richie. You'd think BMW was aiming for an Oscar instead of a fun branding experiment.
In total, the budget for the first two seasons hit around US $25 million. And as far as marketing stunts go, it paid off.
BMW saw a 12 per cent increase in their sales numbers after the films were released. The films were viewed so many times online that BMW compiled them into a DVD that was distributed to selected dealerships. They were so popular that stock ran out and the DVD became a collectors item.
So BMW made more of them. To balance the serious tone of the first 'season' they let the second get a bit wackier.
The 'Saving James Brown's soul from the Devil' one I mentioned earlier? It was directed by the late Tony Scott (of 'Top Gun' fame) and starred James Brown as himself, Danny Trejo as the 'Devil's Doorman' and Gary Oldman as the prince of darkness himself. Not to mention a cameo from Marilyn Manson.
It's as wild as it sounds. Please watch it.
In 2016 as an anniversary special BMW films returned to make 'The Escape', where the driver rescues the result of a cloning experiment from ruthless mercenaries. Again, featuring a whole bunch of well-known talent.
So why is this significant? I mean, companies are doing this thing all the time now, right? Penzoil has their shorts that they do, Tourism Australia just convinced most of the world that Crocodile Dundee was getting a reboot, and thanks to the 'cinematic universe' trend there are film studios making entire feature length films that are basically ads for other films. This sort of marketing is happening on a bigger, broader scale than ever before.
Well, again, BMW tried this back in 2001. They were way ahead of the curve and though they weren't the first to do it, proved that a marketing campaign for a car brand could be just as effective as an ad for a car model.
Also, y'know, the Gary Oldman devil. What's not to enjoy?
What's your favourite chapter of 'the Hire'? Let us know in the comments below.
.jpg)
