The TV ads are slick and exciting. They look like movie trailers for the next summer action blockbuster–there’s the requisite car chase, the sexy leading lady and the famous, high-profile director.
Then the tagline, eschewing any kind of sales pitch, directs you to a Web site. Huh?
To watch what exactly? Another commercial? A short film with exceptional product placement?
To quote that marketing genius, Shakespeare, “Aye, there’s the rub.”
Welcome to BMW’s film series “The Hire”–an ad campaign that’s something of a first in cross-platform advertising that utilizes the best of Hollywood star power, with famous name directors; the best of TV, in terms of reaching large audiences; and the best of the Web, in terms of engaging users.
But have the project’s eclectic, international assortment of helmers–John Frankenheimer (Ronin), Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), Wong Kar-wai (Chungking Express), Guy Ritchie (Snatch) and Alejandro González Iñárritu (Amores Perros)–gone commercial, or has BMW gone Hollywood?
These directors normally never helm ads.
What are they?
“The Hire” series, if nothing else, is a series of five very entertaining, very well-crafted short films. (“Short films” is certainly the sobriquet BMW prefers.) Though each stars Clive Owen as the debonair, inscrutable driver of a BMW, each film has a completely different look and feel specific to the director, who was given latitude in every aspect except script, with a few minor rules: No dead bodies could be shown in a BMW, and if other cars were in the scenes, their logos had to be blurred.
Of course, each film also stars a different gorgeous BMW, though the BMW logo never appears in focus until the very end of each film.
The six- to seven-minute shorts feature BMWs zipping in and around city streets and country roads, outrunning and outmaneuvering all sorts of lesser vehicles like Porsches, Jaguars and Mercedes-Benzes. Big budget Hollywood action movies should be so entertaining.
Beyond that, the films are a clever exercise in advertising that blurs the lines between feature film, product placement, brand extension and online media. Such sponsored films further blur the shifting line between marketing and entertainment.
The directors all said they enjoyed making the movies. Frankenheimer said he enjoyed the freedom, and Lee mentioned the excitement of doing a car chase. If the directors are calling them films, who are we to argue?
Why now?
We all have to face the cooling-off economy and the budget constraints that come with that. Maximizing a dollar has always been and will always be part of the marketing creed. And the free media coverage BMW has received to go along with the series has been enormous.
The caliber of directors involved, not to mention on-screen appearances by Mickey Rourke and Ritchie’s wife, Madonna (maybe you’ve heard of her?), lent not only credibility to the project but free headlines in papers and on entertainment television programs.
The innovative approach to advertising created a buzz that any big budget movie would die for. With shrinking audiences for television, these much-hyped films also parlayed the medium that’s crowding TV for the public’s attention: the Internet.
BMW has successfully grafted the old-guard marketing model into the new technological world order.
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Which leaves us where?
BMW has upped the ante in the marketing game and produced compelling short films at the same time. BMW smartly spent their money–some estimates say BMW spent $10 to $20 million–on the trailers and films themselves, and the let the hype generated by the media compel the public to focus on the advertising portion of the message.
BMW also proved the incredible drawing power of the film format, whether on TV or the Internet. The Internet, heretofore, was not necessarily seen as a compelling medium to watch video content, yet BMW says they’ve had upwards of 10 million visitors on their site since the campaign launched.
Sure, there are many people without broadband access to the Internet. Not to be deterred, BMW will be distributing CDs with all five movies bundled with the September issue of Vanity Fair.
Realize that BMW has managed to pull off a marketing coup: the consumer is watching ads that tempt them to watch even longer ads. There can be no question that though BMW’s short films are entertaining pieces of art, they are first and foremost advertising vehicles.
(All five films can be seen at bmwfilms.com.)
