BMW Mini rides on luxury magazines

The auto brand has released innovative print ads in more than 10 luxury magazines to reach out to young Indians.

Mini, the car brand acquired by BMW in 2007 and launched in India in 2012, has launched a print campaign spread across luxury magazines. The campaign aims to strengthen the brand's presence in India in the premium hatchback segment.

The ads, in magazines such as Rolling Stone, Forbes, Fortune, Watch Time, GQ, AD (Architectural Digest) and others, are tailored according to the readers of each magazine.

For example, the BMW Mini ad in Rolling Stone magazine carries an added hair style similar to that of Elvis Presley with the catch line, 'The King Lives'. Another ad in the same magazine has the Rolling Stone type tongue attached to the front of the car, with the catch line 'Move Like a Jagger'. In Watch Time magazine, the three models of the Mini sold in India are shown with the catch line, 'Timeless Machines'.

Similar innovative creatives cover all magazines chosen for the campaign.

Speaking about the campaign, Kay Koester, executive creative director, Liquid Campaign India (the agency that executed the campaign), says, "We wanted to create ads that could irritate the reader of these magazines and push them to find out what exactly is there for him and read and get connected to the Mini brand. A simple car ad in these magazines would not have solved the purpose and the reader would have ignored it."

He adds that the brief from the client was to create awareness, engage with the readers and bring them to the website or the toll free number for inquiry. The idea was to break the automobile advertising cliché and reach out to the people, in a manner where they would pay attention.

The campaign began in December, 2012 and will continue through 2013 and some part of 2014. It mainly targets young Indians and people from affluent backgrounds.

Koester adds that a Mini consumer can be a youth as well as a 65-year-old person.

Currently, the car brand has three models in India, The Mini, The Mini Convertible and The Mini Countryman. Instead of importing the cars, the company is bringing the parts and reassembling them in the BMW India facility at Chennai.

Mini has been there since 1959, while brands Mini One and Mini Cooper were launched in 2001, with the Mini Cooper S and the Mini Convertible models following in 2002 and 2004, respectively. Some of the other models from the brand sold worldwide are Mini Clubman, Mini Cooper S Clubman, Mini Cooper D Clubman and others.

Liquid Campaign is a full service German agency, which has been operating in India for the past three years. The agency handles the BMW Mini account and Lufthansa (online communication) account in India. It has offices across Russia, China, Korea and other countries of Europe and Asia.