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100
80
60
BMW
40
Mercedes
20
0
Social Index Score
Figure 1, Social Index Score (Brand Responsiveness & Audience Content Engagement) 4
The reason why this report has chosen BMW Group as a case in point lies in the fact
that BMW boasts one of the most successful social media campaigns in the industry,
with an overwhelmingly strong social presence and engagement, coupled with a wide
variety of platforms used across various geographic and national boundaries3. Few in
the industry can match the level that BMW has taken its social media strategy up to.
The remainder of this report will seek to explain not only the successes of the BMW
way, but also its weaknesses given the competitive space, as well as the lessons we
can glean from the prestigious German carmaker.
20,000,000
15,000,000
BMW
10,000,000
Audi
Porsche
5,000,000
0
Facebook Fans
Moreover, it is certainly not just one-way traffic for BMWs Facebook endeavors. In
2012, during the launch of the new 3 Series model (which accelerated from 0 to 60 mph
in just 5.9 seconds), BMW kick-started a DESIR3 Contest on Facebook in which users
were asked to create 5.9-second adverts promoting the new model. The result was a
phenomenal success, with over 2,000 clips submitted and the winner eventually
driving home a brand new BMW 3 Series7. This is just one of the many examples of
how BMW engages with its fans and customers through social media, encouraging the
creation of user-generated content and entertainment-infused interaction with its users.
And it is, of course, common knowledge in social media best practices that the
inclusion of user-generated content and user interaction in social media marketing is
always leaps and bounds more effective than if they were otherwise neglected.
n TWITTER
F
As with some of its rivals, BMW places substantial emphasis on its mobile applications,
and views it as a way to further engage the user outside of the social networking space.
One of BMWs most successful apps is Ultimate Drive users are provided with
maps marking their favorite locations and routes, and subsequently allowed to leave
suggestions and warnings for other drivers as well as to rate roads. What this does is
that it effectively creates a very closely-knit community of BMW drivers, who are
brought together based on a common passion or hobby (i.e. BMW, driving). One could
argue that such communities are indeed highly effectual in promoting brand loyalty
and a sense of belonging to BMW.
n EMPLOYEE ADVOCACY
F
While employee advocacy is not strictly a social media platform per se, it is definitely
worthy of independent mention under BMWs multi-faceted strategy. Employee
advocacy is a marketing technique in which employees (especially salespersons) who
are exceptionally passionate about the brand are encouraged to engage in brandrelated conversations on their very own social media accounts, by posting videos,
images, or links that involve themselves and their companys brand. These employees
tend to take huge pride in their company and brand, and often are very
knowledgeable about their companys products, making them some of the best brand
ambassadors,
according
to
Andrew
Cutler,
the
Executive
and
Internal
It goes without saying that the above list is far from exhaustive in describing BMWs
social media strategies. BMW also engages in search engine marketing and
optimization, e-mail and mobile messaging through its extensive client database,
maintaining an account on the increasingly popular photo-and-video-sharing app
Instagram, operating a Google+ account and a YouTube channel BMW TV, as well
as involving themselves with online car magazines and games. However, BMWs
operations on these platforms are very much standard and self-explanatory.
It is worthy to note, however, that BMW has yet to officiate a Pinterest account, unlike
Honda and Chevrolet, which have established presences on this platform. However,
Honda and Chevrolet represent a vastly different market segment from BMW and
therefore any comparison between them would be tenuous and possibly unwise.
results these campaigns yielded were simply magnifique. The Forbes magazine
definitely agrees. Let customers have a say, it writes18.
n CREATIVITY
F
Here, we refer to BMWs ability to think out of the box and create one-off social media
campaigns that are incredibly creative and effective, and yet do not really fit into any
standard category. One notable case in point is BMWs 4 Series launch. Using social
media as a testing ground, BMW offered a free test drive of the new 4 Series over a
particular weekend, even before the car had even reached dealers, in a campaign they
called UN4GETTABLE Weekend. Influential BMW fans were chosen to participate,
and eventually the campaign ended up having higher engagement levels than any
other in BMWs history. Through this, BMW was not just engaging with its fans, but
also transforming the concept of marketing a brand new series of cars from a topdown dealer-to-client approach, to a bottom-up client-to-client approach, making use
of the extensive individual reach that social media provides.
n VISUAL APPEAL
F
It may, on first thought, seem commonsensical that social media campaigns should
use visually appealing images. However, it will surprise many how several
established and well-known brands consistently fail to deliver this. BMW, on the other
hand, aces this and passes with flying colors. A quick look at BMWs main Facebook
page will convince anyone of its consistent ability to portray its cars at aesthetically
appealing angles, tantalizing colors, and with exotic backgrounds taken from the
most outlandish parts of the world. And as they say, a picture speaks a thousand
words, and BMW certainly respects that. Every BMW photo on social media tells a
story, in the very way the Forbes Magazine describes19.
n
PRACTICALITY
It is probably a very German (and healthy) habit to keep things practical. As much as
we require social media campaigns to engage the superficial aesthetics and to delve
into the fluff and creative arenas, a social media campaign cannot succeed if it is just
that fluff. (In the next Chapter, we will look at an example of Audis failed campaign
due to irrelevant content.) In its Facebook and Twitter campaigns, BMW stringently
keeps itself relevant to what it is, despite all the effort put into user engagement and
creativity. Every BMW social media campaign relates back to the brand itself, the car,
or the driving experience. Mazdas North America Marketing Director agrees, When
we get into some of the more human aspects, theres a little less interest. When were
showcasing the product, the technology, photos of our engines thats when people
get excited.20
n BRAND AWARENESS
F
Perhaps this is better categorized as an advantage rather than strength. The innate
brand name of this 90-year old automobile giant is almost synonymous to
performance, luxury, and style, and this has been a significant tailwind for BMWs
social media campaigns. It simply makes it that much easier to market your brand
when people already know about it or feel positive about it21. Renee Richardson
Gosline, an assistant professor of marketing at MITs Sloan School of Management
explains how customers relationships with their BMWs sometimes even rival those
they form with their pets22.
Weaknesses
For all of BMWs strengths, no analysis of their social marketing campaign, however,
will be complete without examining areas in which BMW could improve upon:
n RESPONSIVENESS TO USERS
F
While BMW does an excellent job at engaging users and soliciting user-generated
content from them, they seem to be considerably lackluster in their efforts at
responding to users23. As mentioned in an earlier section, BMW does not reply to users
comments and queries on Facebook. While there could be other unknown reasons for
this, any company should respect the fact that Facebook remains by and large the most
important social media platform that most netizens use (over Twitter, Instagram, etc.),
and if there is insufficient interaction between BMW and its users on Facebook (here
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This point may raise a few eyebrows because our analysis of BMWs strategy so far
reveals its dexterity at navigating the world of social media marketing. However, it
may not be known to many that BMW actually learned their lessons the hard way. In
fact, up till 2014, BMW did not even use hash tags in their tweets, and a hugely
popular advert featuring two BMWs kissing were initially rejected by the ultraconservative senior management team because it did not fit in with BMWs image.
One may even be baffled as to why, up till that point, BMWs internal management
only reported website and channel usage24 when it came to social media, and did not
even fully appreciate the concept of likes or engagement. A separate campaign in
May 2014 that sought to imitate a flash mob, too, did not sit in well with senior
executives at its inception, although its fun twist25 eventually saw the campaign
attract a massive social media following. Fortunately for BMW and this is perhaps
where we could possibly cast the spotlight back onto their strengths talented Steven
Althaus, dubbed as BMWs global director of brand management who convinced
BMW to rethink social media26 , had the foresight to reverse the damage before it
became irreparable. For one, he managed to successfully persuade high-level decision
makers to adopt the flash mob campaign, and to start experimenting with hash tags on
Twitter, all of which contributed to BMWs astounding marketing success today.
n DETACHMENT WITH AUDIENCE
F
Some critics have casted light upon how BMW is targeting the wrong audience and
market for its social media campaigns27. Allegedly, BMW does not understand its
audience and targets people who cannot even afford BMWs in the first place
testament to this are tweets along the lines of I cant afford it the end in response
to BMWs Twitter campaigns. On the other hand, however, it is public knowledge that
part of BMWs multi-faceted digital marketing strategy is to foster emotions of how
BMWs are mysterious, pricey, and lavish cars that people aspire to own some day,
even if they currently did not28. And it makes perfect sense human beings have an
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innate desire for objects that are not easily attainable, and that is the crux of marketing
philosophy in the luxury goods industry, which BMW is proudly part of.
n CARELESSNESS
F
As a final point, it is reported that BMWs online campaigns are often fraught and
bugged with non-working links29 and ill-conceived applications that are not userfriendly and have very limited functionality30. There is not much to elaborate on this,
apart from the fact that this can be massively detrimental to user experience and
consequently hinder the success of BMWs digital marketing campaigns. As a gigantic
multi-national manufacturer of luxury cars, a problem like this ought to be fixed as
quickly as possible, especially since it seemingly requires very little effort to remedy.
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Audi is the first car that comes to mind once we strike BMW off a list of cars.
Unfortunately, when it comes to engaging users on social media, Audi does not quite
seem to understand the ball game as well as its bigger brother does. In an attempt to
engage users with entertaining content on social media, Audi seems to have made
the blunder of posting irrelevant content. CARS PLEASE, commented a particular
Audi fan on the Facebook page. This initially started off as a novel idea whereby Audi
encouraged users to share their real life triumphs over adversity on social media,
after which selected interesting stories would be presented by artists in a 6-hour live
event. And the result was a string of confused Audi fans who were simply more
accustomed to seeing cool photos of Audi cars, and not irrelevant images of artists31.
In addition, Audi does not have quite the same following on social media as BMW
does, in terms of the hard numbers. In fact, more than 33% of BMWs impressions in
2013 were rich media placements, compared to less than 5% for Audi, and it is hardly
good news for Audi that BMWs mobile apps (such as the Motorsport Le Mans app in
2010) and TV podcasts have consistently given it an edge over Audi in terms of the
richness of its social media content32. While Audi, too, develops apps for mobile users,
we have not seen anything more astonishing than a driving simulation app, which has
apparently left some users rather dizzy after usage. To hammer the point home,
Audi does not even have an Instagram account in Russia like BMW does.
Audi, however, does have a strong foothold in video strategy. The BMW rival focuses
primarily on big sporting events, evident in its Green Police advert in the 2010 Super
Bowl which attracted more than 2 million views on YouTube. Simply put, Audi
outpaces BMW on network television, and not by any small stride.
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n MERCEDES-BENZ
F
Figure 4, Comparison of Key Words Mentioned for BMW vs. Mercedes Benz 4
n PORSCHE
F
In an unimaginable show of trust in its followers, Citroen actually invited its Facebook
users to design the upcoming C1 Connexion model. Just like Porsche, involving the
audience in the decision-making process yielded marvelous results Citroens social
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One campaign by Toyota called for users to design and create an environment around
a particular model yet another effort by a carmaker to engage users in a relevant
experience.
n MINI
F
Minis NOT NORMAL campaign, which prompted fans to upload photos and
videos with the hash tag #MININOTNORMAL, allowed the brand to engage with
230,000 fans within a span of six weeks, with almost 30,000 of them being new fans.
Minis followers on Twitter even tripled in number. The campaign achieved an
unthinkable 11% conversion rate, where 1 out of 10 visitors to the campaign hub
ended up becoming qualified dealership leads35. This is once again testament to the
significance of user engagement in digital marketing.
Summary
5,000,000
4,000,000
BMW
3,000,000
Audi
2,000,000
Ford
1,000,000
Toyota
0
YouTube Channel Views
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As we have seen repeatedly time and again, engaging users in social media campaigns
is the way to go for 21st century digital marketing. And successful marketers do not
simply engage users with irrelevant content (recall Audis failed campaign), but
instead inject relevance and perhaps some practicality (the informative strategy BMW
adopts) into their campaigns. Better still, they involve fans in some form of decisionmaking, such as what BMW, Porsche and Citroen did with their new models.
n USER INTERACTION
F
It is not sufficient to merely engage users and fans. A successful brand has to converse
with its followers, who are usually the best source of earnest and constructive
feedback that can prove to be extremely valuable to a brands image.
n USE MULTIPLE PLATFORMS
F
One could argue that BMWs marketing success plays tribute in large part to its
commitment towards using a variety of social media platforms. Every platform
attracts and appeals to a different segment of society, and we want to reach as many
people as we can. Perhaps one very important message from BMWs experience is to
not overlook or underestimate the less conventional forms of social media marketing,
such as employee advocacy, which has proven to be hugely successful for BMW.
n STAY CREATIVE, STAY BEAUTIFUL, STAY ALERT
F
In the world of social media marketing, one simply cannot emphasize further how
important it is to be creative and innovative. While the aforementioned points
certainly serve as a guideline for any digital marketer, no brand can survive in this
competitive space without being innovative and constantly thinking out of the box to
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bring novelty to its social media space. Moreover, it is of utmost important to stay
visually attractive and effective in all social media campaigns, because ultimately,
pictures speak way more than words. Last but not least, brands should stay alert and
constantly monitor what their competitors are doing; one simply cannot afford to lag
behind trends in the dynamic and ever-changing landscape of digital marketing.
n RUN A GOOD BUSINESS, SELL A WONDERFUL PRODUCT
F
No amount of digital marketing will be successful if the brand or company does not
ultimately deliver. The underlying and most fundamental reason why BMWs social
media campaigns have worked so well lies in the fact that at the end of the day, BMW
delivers stylish, luxurious, and high performance cars that match up to everything
they promote on social media. In the absence of substance, flamboyant use of social
media market will only end up in an absolute fiasco.
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