BMW's The Hire Money pit or money-maker?
It seems car manufacturers will do almost anything to catch your interest. Whether it's a financial incentive like "nought percent finance" or "a year's free car insurance", a flashy TV advert or sponsorship of a major sports team or event, the marketing departments at Ford, Vauxhall, Renault and all the others are in constant and fierce competition for your attention and your business. However, a couple of discounts and the company name on the sleeve of a few football players can seem pretty small-fry when compared to the lengths some upmarket auto brands are prepared to go to. Take BMW, for instance. It may have a slogan that hasn't changed in thirty years (BMW has been using 'The Ultimate Driving Machine' since 1975), but in other respects the firm is continually pushing back the boundaries of conventional marketing - and conventional marketing budgets, for that matter. Creating a desirable brand image is worth a great deal of money to BMW, because in the prestige market it's the image (rather than more plebeian factors like reliability or fuel economy) that really sells cars. As a result there tends to be an abstract and somewhat cerebral quality to BMW marketing, such that you're often unaware of what it is exactly that's being advertised. Not for BMW the bulleted list of desirable features, boasting of awards won and flagrant use of the brand and model name associated with other, more affordable marques. Instead we are generally treated to a barrage of colours or light trails; beautiful people looking at silhouettes or an outline suggestive of the car in question; followed thereafter by the familiar blue-and-white badge with the interminable slogan underneath. Confused about what you just witnessed? That's the idea. Just like some 80s barroom Lothario courting his latest victim, BMW deliberately sets out to create an 'air of mystery' about itself - and that's not just because most of today's BMW owners spent most of their time trying to pick up women in bars during the 80s. The marketing men know that most people forget a straightforward advertisement almost as soon as it's over. Give the audience a puzzle, however, and it'll stick in their minds for ages - in the same way as the forgotten name of a film star still bothers you long after the conversation that brought it up. The world of cinema is actually another resource to have been tapped by the BMW marketing machine. In one of its most unconventional advertising forays to date, BMW commissioned a series of eight short films to be made in the early 2000s, called collectively 'The Hire'. Initially only made available online (they have since been withdrawn from official BMW pages, but can be easily tracked down on the likes of YouTube), they were subsequently released on a limited-edition DVD for BMW owners. The amount of money BMW must have thrown at these films is staggering. First there's the stellar cast of Hollywood A-listers to pay; including Clive Owen, Mickey Rourke, Gary Oldman, Ray Liotta and Madonna. Add similarly high-salaried directors like Ang Lee and John Woo. Then there's the cost of what amounts to a couple of summer blockbusters' worth of special effects, stunts and car chases; clearly you're looking at a budget of many millions of pounds.
And as for the results? BMW thought them good enough to take several of the films to Cannes, where they aired to mostly positive feedback from festival-goers. Not surprisingly, the BMW enthusiast community loves every moment of machine gun fire and squealing tyres, and the rest of us probably see them for what they are, which is a mildly entertaining money pit. The overwhelming impression you're left with after watching one of these films isn't to do with the high octane thrill-ride directly; it's the price BMW had to pay for it.
Advertising is a subtle and complicated business and getting the desired message across to your target audience is far from guaranteed, even for a well established company like BMW. But if The Hire says one thing, it's that BMW equals big money - and that's in all likelihood exactly as the marketing team behind it would have wanted.
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