WOMBAT 3 Case Studies (Part 1 of 3): Mini Cooper

This is the first in a 3-part post series about case studies from day 2 of WOMBAT 3. The panels went much faster on the second day because they were all half-hour case studies stacked right up against each other, so I’m only now getting these great panels posted.

Mini did an amazing presentation about tapping into their existing community using word of mouth. When they started, their community of Mini owners was not being tapped. They were always good at making their community happy, and giving what they wanted (one of the coolest cars on earth), but they didn’t use the community as a core component of their marketing. In other words, they never expected more from their community.

The car company had spent years building an amazing product, not to mention an amazing brand, and their users were actually a core component of the equity of the brand. So, they needed to figure out how to tap into that. 2006 was an important year for mini, but the problem was that they needed to maintain the brand’s momentum and cool while having no new news (because the next model wasn’t being released for another year). It was a cool time to do some really cool stuff.
One thing they did was made a community film about a cross country road trip where they got tons of Mini owners to participate. They made the film to learn something about the culture of the brand. They got really clever with this campaign and even created these funny art pieces that participants could leave on their desks at work that said things like, “John was recently diagnosed with a mystery ailment by the center for disease control and has left to drive cross country to get some help.” Ballsy. Clever.

Another thing they did was to create a Mini covert kit which was a decoder that revealed secret messages in print ads and media (sort of like being the ultimate insider). Tough luck if you’re not a mini owner, but that’s sort of the point. They make their community very happy, while at the same time making the brand very aspirational — we want a decoder, we want in on the joke.

Their last example was of the Mini Motorby campaign where owners were given small key fob. They could logon to a microsite and register the fob with their information. Then, in select cities, when they drive by a Mini billboard, it would talk to them. Amazing as that is, it would talk to them in front of the hundreds of other drivers in traffic with the owner. Once they figured out what was going on, how many people said to themselves, “I want on of those!”?

All of these campaigns illustrate how after they discovered some unique qualities about their community, they could push the limits of those relationships and their own creativity to do some really amazing things.