BMW E-Marketing Analysis

Kennedy Mbwette
2013
CONTENTS

Executive Summary 2

Background 2

BMW Internet Marketing 2

BMW Website 3

BMW Applications 3

BMW Online Marketing Communications 3

Search Engine Marketing 4

Online Public Relations 4

Online Television 4

Online Advertisements 5

Social Networks 5

Email and Mobile Messaging 5

Online magazine and newsletters 6

Online Games 6

BMW Integrated Online Marketing Communication 6

BMW Brisbane Case Study 6

BMW Latin America Case Study 7

“Story of Joy” campaign 7

BMW Films Campaign 7

Conclusion 7

References 8

Appendix 11

1
Executive Summary
BMW is a large-scale automobile company serving worldwide with rivals such as Audi and Mercedes-Benz.
To outrun its competition, BMW has incorporated the internet to its overall marketing strategies. Because
about 85% of its customers conduct internet research before purchasing, BMW has invested on internet
through website, online applications and television, and social networks to conduct e-marketing. BMW
uses internet for online advertising, marketing public relations, promotions, direct marketing and
improving customer relations. With its establishment on internet, BMW provides its customers with rich
marketing information quickly, on-time and at low costs through e-newsletters, e-magazines, online
broadcast, emails and text messages. The internet also enables BMW to conduct personalized and
localized marketing with interactivity such as virtual show rooms. The company’s strategic integrated
marketing communication plan implements and monitors both traditional and online marketing
campaigns concurrently to collectively conduct various campaigns that have had remarkable successes
and a few challenges to its overall company marketing strategies.

Background
Bavarian Motor Works (BMW) is a German automobile, motorcycle and engine manufacturing company
founded about 96 years ago currently serving worldwide with subsidiaries and manufacturing plants in
over 13 countries on five continents (BMW, 2013; Wikipedia, 2013).

BMW is a large company with an average annual production output of 1,481,253 globally supplied
automobiles, and challenged by a number of strong competitions from other luxury automakers including
AUDI and Mercedes-Benz. In order to achieve its marketing objectives more effectively, BMW has well
invested in strategic use of electronic and communication technology to create competitive advantage
through e-marketing as discussed in the following section (Chaffey et al., 2006; Wikipedia, 2013).

BMW Internet Marketing

BMW uses internet through its main international
website (www.bmw.com) and its subsidiaries as
part of marketing strategy to conduct mass
marketing worldwide. This has been
advantageous to BMW since 2001 when it
conducted a research and found that about 85%
of its customers used the internet before
purchasing its products (Hespos, 2002). BMW
uses the internet to build its brand and product
awareness, offer various buying options for
customers, overcome location barriers at
minimum costs through online stores, interact Figure 1: BMW Website
with consumers, and promote the company core brand values and heritage. It also enjoys localization and
personalization of advertisements and websites to reduce barriers such as language and compatibility.

2
BMW Website
The BMW website provides information about the corporation, products, services and an online store. The
website is used to easily reach customers worldwide with rich information and enhance buying experience
with virtual showroom through an interactive tool (BMW configurator). The tool enables customers to
build their ideal BMW automobile, estimates costs, and allow to place order. (BMW-Lifestyle, 2013).

BMW has designed its website in such a way that will attract consumers by offering various resources
including brochures, subscribed e-newsletters and online magazine issues that provide latest news on
products and deals to promote the brand and maintain its awareness. The BMW website also offers access
to online video games, dowloads for wallpapers, screen savers, widgets, and other brand promoting
applications.

In order to acquire and retain their customers BMW

website also assists improving customer relations and
service delivery through registrations, online assistance
and direct access to local dealers.

According to GetWebsiteWorth, the BMW international

website is worth about $167,755 with daily page views of
about 76,811 and daily ads revenue of about $230
Figure 2: BMW Website Activities (GetWebsiteWorth, 2013)

However, Yandalo stats show about only 6% of the website visitors to use the additional features
reflecting their very low contribution. However, this may be due to the structure of the website hence
slightly difficult to determine features’ actual contribution to the overall marketing (Yandalo, 2013).

BMW Applications
BMW has strategically used computer, tablets and other mobile devices applications for e-marketing
strategies due to their increasing popularity rapid advancement. The currently existing marketing related
applications include BMW Mobile Configurator, BMW Magazine, BMW Connected, The Ultimate Drive and
numerous official games (BMW, 2013).These applications are available for different platforms including
Facebook Apps, iOS, Android and Windows. The applications can be accessed online or downloaded
through the BMW websites. The Facebook BMW Ultimate Drive for instance, has 5838 and an average of
more than 200 users per month, capturing a fair amount of relevant market attention (Facebook, 2013).
The applications help BMW for transmit products and promotion information, and also act as add-ons for
their customers. All these applications are integrated with social networks and other BMW online channels
to extend coverage and collectively providing a strong company online marketing competitive advantage.

BMW Online Marketing Communications

BMW has incorporated the internet into its overall marketing strategies in order to attract and retain its
customers more effectively and efficiently. To achieve this, it has invested in and integrated several online
communication channels subsequently discussed.
3
Search Engine Marketing
In order to gain its website traffic, BMW has adopted
a number of techniques to promote its brand through
search engines. One of BMW’s techniques is paid
search marketing in which it has bought ads on some
search engines such as BING and Yahoo so that ads
that links to their website appear on top when a user
types specific keywords (see figure 4)

BMW’s other technique is search engine optimization

(SEO) enabling to influence visibility of its website in
search engines’ standard results (see figure 4).

BMW’s SEO activities were evidently noted in 2006 Figure 3: BMW Search Engine Marketing
when its Germany website suffered a ‘death penalty’ by Google search engine for breaching its guidelines
by influencing the search results to ensure top ranking when users search for “used car” (BBC, 2006). This
reflects impact of related macro environment factors that companies must considered when adopting
relevant e-marketing techniques.

Online Public Relations

BMW conducts online public awareness through it online Global PressClub portal (press.bmwgroup.com).
It provides the ongoing corporate media matters, press releases and third-party media coverage (BMW-
PressClub, 2013). The company also webcast its brand related events to many people and simultaneously
through its dedicated portal (www.bmwwebcast.com) either live or on demand (BMW-Webcast, 2013).

BMW online public relations extend to social networks such as Twitter and Facebook in order to influence
public opinions and create company goodwill. Using social networks communication for public relations is
prone to high risk of damaging brand image due to the liberty involved, however BMW use it as it provides
a fast and easy multi-directional communication for customers to access and share information.

BMW conduct online brand protection campaigns by publicizing their original brand standards and risks of
using fake goods, and overall product piracy. The company has a dedicated website for brand protection
(www.brand-protection-team.com) that is linked to other BMW websites (Brand-Protection-Team, 2013).

Online Television
BMW has invested in online television to promote its core brand values, technology, quality, performance
and exclusiveness, due to its ability to provide global concurrent, real-time, rich information coverage.
BMW has its online channel (www.bmw.tv) where all the official advertisements, launching and promotion
videos are uploaded to create brand, products and services awareness and support information.

BMW also broadcasts its marketing videos to large online TV third-parties such as MSNBC, Bravo and
NBC, whose viewers constitutes 20.5% of BMW’s income bracket target and 26.5% of the BMW’s
targeted age group (Pareek, 2009; Tsirulnik, 2011).
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Moreover, BMW also provides its contents through large Youtube Views
social networks such as YouTube which allows interaction
among viewers, whereby they can share views, ask 4,666,412
questions or discuss about the videos. According to the
2,303,638
VidStatsX web measurement, the BMW Youtube channel
725,904
indicates a successful marketing channel by ranking 207,696
higher than most of its competitors (see figure 5).
Audi Company
BMW Ford Toyota

Online Advertisements Figure 4: Youtube Channel Views

BMW has partnered with online affiliates such as WCRS with the intention of encouraging brand
awareness, ad recall, purchase intent and drawing more visitors to its website (BMW-Education, 2011).
BMW North-America for instance spends 15% (second largest proportion) of its marketing budget on
digital marketing including internet and mobile application ads, indicating the importance of its
contribution to their marketing strategies (Boeriu, 2011). Online advertisement channels enable BMW to
display interactive advertisements such as pop-ups, banners, skyscrapers, shoshkeles and interstitials
through selected third-party sites and mobile applications which can deliver the ads to relevant audiences.

Additionally, BMW engages in sponsoring events that will broadcast its advertisements online such as
Super Bowl 2013, one of the largest online broadcasts which had an average of 108.4 million viewers
(MMLabs, 2013; Moraes, 2013). Online advertisements allows BMW to be flexible in advertising for
instance audience specific display, also with an appeal through visual and audio (Kumar, 2012).

Social Networks
BMW e-marketing strategy incorporates social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube due to
the potential of reaching a great number of people at relatively low cost. BMW uses social networks as
they allow multimedia and interactive communication with a large number of consumers enabling to
conduct viral, communal and influenced marketing campaigns. Additionally, the company uses the
platforms for satisfied customers to easily recommend their products to others and also as a medium to
conduct customer-product conversations and brand blogging. The official BMW Facebook page has
13,396,064 likes and more than 100 thousand followers on Twitter. With such a great number of fans
compared to its competitors, BMW is able to deliver its advertisements to a large number of people at an
instant and easily draw them to its websites at a relatively low cost.

Email and Mobile Messaging

BMW’s online platforms provide a registration option to the visitors which BMW uses the registration
details to conduct direct sales, and brand awareness promotions for those who opted to receive. BMW
communicates with its customers periodically through email and messages for promotion, customer
retention and also to obtain further data that helps learning customer online behaviors. Email and text
messaging allow easy personalization, fast reach and can be easily integrated with other channels at
relatively low costs. However, successful communication through this channel is not always guaranteed
due to delivery failures or differences in customer communication preferences (Chaffey, et al., 2006).
5
Online magazine and newsletters
The online magazines provide engaging reading
experience through interactive features with more
information, pictures, videos, and other
entertainments. The company is able to deliver its
magazines and e-newsletters to its consumers at
once and at relatively low cost compared to printing
and physical delivery costs (see table 2). The online
issues also enable information to effectively reach
the targeted audience on time regardless their
locations (BMW, 2013). Moreover, BMW endorses
online distribution methods as they minimize pollution and Figure 5: BMW e-Magazine
reassure energy conservation, as abides by its environmental protection guidelines (BMWGroup, 2003)

Online Games
The BMW multi-player online video game (PACE) is strategically used by the company to promote
performance of its vehicles, create strong positive brand image, an appeal to the players. This enhances
awareness of BMW products in market and influence players who are potential buyers or ambasadors.

BMW Integrated Online Marketing Communication

BMW marketers have incorporated the internet into their promotional tools to build and maintain brand
awareness, and to attract and retain its customers. Through integrated marketing communication plan on
the internet, BMW conducts both its traditional and online marketing campaigns consistently through
collective communication channels and reaches its targeted audience with greater impact than through
individual communication as in the following case examples.

BMW Brisbane Case Study 24-HRS BRISBANE RESULTS

The company launched an e-mail marketing campaign to release a
new version of BMW Z4 with the aim of generating interest for Test OUT OF 1303 RECEIPIENTS
Drives. Detailed Z4 graphics and branded Test Drive registration  55% READ THE EMAIL SENT
forms were sent to the customers. The campaign results are  8.6% RESPONDED TO EMAIL
summarized in table 1.
 4% REGISTERED INSTANTLY

A testimonial from the Brisbane BMW marketing manager:  9 PEOPLE RECOMMENED TO

FRIENDS
“The sale was excellent with great feedback from the email
design! We sold almost 50 cars over the 3 days. Put us into the
number one position in Australia for December” (Vision6, 2005) Table 1:Bristane Results
Channel Views

6
BMW Latin America Case Study
The 2011 promotion of BMW 1 series was an interactive marketing campaign through Facebook in order to
support the launch and collect audience data. BMW deployed Windows Azure system that enabled them
to independently manage the solution and integrate it with their existing systems. The promotion
engaged 90,000 consumers through two different languages at the same time, at a relatively low cost, and
was able to convert 900 campaign participants into potential customers (Microsoft, 2012).

“Story of Joy” campaign

BMW’s 2010 “Story of Joy” advertising campaign was intended to attract customers who were not
necessarily driving enthusiasts as the “Ultimate Driving Machine”. The campaign associated social
networks, dedicated website (http://www.expressionofjoy.com/#), games and interactive ads, collectively
integrated with traditional marketing channels. An industry-specific intelligent social media listening tool
was used to determine the impact of the campaign; and was noted that the brand conversations by
females had increased by 20% signaling a definite demographic shift (J.D.Power, 2010). The impact of the
campaign was easily understood through internet compare to traditional channels due to the rich user
information such as age, gender and location. The overall joy campaign was very successful resulting in a
rapid recovery of company net profit (see figure 6).

BMW Films Campaign

The 2001 “BMW Films” promotional campaign through online short films was designed explicitly to direct
consumers to the BMW Films website. Web visitors were required to registration in order to watch the
films, hence BMW was able to both spread the message and obtain consumer information. The campaign
was supported by TV adverts, prints, billboards and online advertisement that all directed to the same
BMW Films website thus collectively increase traffic. The campaign results were historical to the
automotive industries at that time with more than 10 million views, 2 million registrations with 60% opting
to receive more information, all at a cost of around only $1.20 per person (Hespos, 2002).. Additionally,
94% of the registrants recommended films to others which resulted in a viral campaign and website traffic
increase by 55% to 214,000 unique visitors compared to the weekly 138,000 enabling BMW to increase
yearly sales by 12.5% in 2002 and later reported to have reached 74% (Pareek, 2009; Strauss, et al., 2006)

Conclusion
BMW is an established company. This establishment can be credited partly due to both its ongoing and
campaign specific marketing strategies. It has been seen that BMW’s well-structured integration of online
and offline marketing communications has contributed to its e-marketing strategies success, in the
essence that they collectively assist to identify, acquire, anticipate, satisfy and retain the customers. The
BMW campaign examples have shown e-marketing initiatives to be relatively cheap and efficient
compared to traditional marketing. However, one must understand and abide with both existing macro
and micro environment factors when implementing e-marketing initiatives. This is due to the likeliness to
harm the marketing strategies or damage the brand as it was seen in BMW’s SEO bridging attempts.

7
References
BBC, 2006. BBC News. [Online]
Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/4685750.stm
[Accessed 6 5 2013].

BMW, 2013. BMW Magazine online. [Online]

Available at: http://www.bmw.com/com/en/insights/explore/bmw_magazine/01_2012/introduction.html
[Accessed 5 5 2013].

BMW, 2013. Production worldwide. [Online]

Available at:
http://www.bmwgroup.com/e/0_0_www_bmwgroup_com/produktion/produktionsnetzwerk/produktionss
tandorte/produktionsstandorte.shtml
[Accessed 5 5 2013].

BMW-Education, 2011. BMW Education Programme. [Online]

Available at: http://www.bmweducation.co.uk/coFacts/view.asp?docID=47
[Accessed 7 5 2013].

BMWGroup, 2003. Environmental Guidelines: BMW Group. [Online]

Available at:
http://www.bmwgroup.com/e/0_0_www_bmwgroup_com/verantwortung/publikationen/downloads/_pdf/
BMWGroup_Environmental_Guidelines.pdf
[Accessed 8 5 2013].

BMW-Lifestyle, 2013. BMW Shop. [Online]

Available at: http://shop.bmwgroup.com/index-MLDE-WFS-en_EU-EUR.html
[Accessed 5 5 2013].

BMW-PressClub, 2013. BMW Group. [Online]

Available at: https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/pressclub/p/pcgl/startpage.html
[Accessed 6 5 2013].

BMW-Webcast, 2013. BMW Webcast. [Online]

Available at: http://www.bmwwebcast.com/
[Accessed 6 5 2013].

Boeriu, H., 2011. BMW-Blog. [Online]

Available at: http://www.bmwblog.com/2011/04/17/bmw-na-marketing-to-focus-on-tv-advertising/
[Accessed 9 5 2013].

Brand-Protection-Team, 2013. BMW Group Brand Protection. [Online]

Available at:
https://smp.bmwgroup.com/servlet/UMFramesetServlet?region=PPE&brand=BMWGroup&location=publi
c&cssaved=done
[Accessed 6 5 2013].
8
Chaffey, D., Ellis-Chadwick, F., Mayer, R. & Johnston, K., 2006. Internet Marketing: Strategy,
Implementation and Practice. Essex: Pearson Education Limited.

Facebook, 2013. Facebook. [Online]

Available at: https://www.facebook.com/UltimateDriveApp?ref=ts&fref=ts
[Accessed 6 5 2013].

GetWebsiteWorth, 2013. Site Audit: bmw.com. [Online]

Available at: http://www.getwebsiteworth.com/bmw.com
[Accessed 5 5 2013].

Hespos, T., 2002. BMW Films: iMedia Connection. [Online]

Available at: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/546.asp
[Accessed 8 5 2013].

J.D.Power, 2010. Case Studies: J.D. Power and Associates. [Online]

Available at: http://images.dealer.com/jdpa/pdf/10-US-BMW-CS.pdf
[Accessed 8 5 2013].

Kumar, S., 2012. Slide share. [Online]

Available at: http://www.slideshare.net/sk773ER/emarketing-bmw-presentation
[Accessed 7 5 2013].

Microsoft, 2012. Case Studies: Microsoft. [Online]

Available at: http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Windows-Azure/BMW-Latin-America/BMW-
Supports-Model-Launch-Develops-Prospects-with-Cloud-Based-Social-Marketing/710000001091
[Accessed 8 5 2013].

MMLabs, 2013. Vimeo. [Online]

Available at: http://vimeo.com/59493621
[Accessed 7 5 2013].

Moraes, L. d., 2013. Entertainments: The Washington Post. [Online]

Available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/tv-column/post/nielsen-scrubs-blackout-from-super-
bowl-ratings/2013/02/04/d2218ff8-6ed6-11e2-8b8d-e0b59a1b8e2a_blog.html
[Accessed 9 5 2013].

Pareek, A., 2009. Author Stream. [Online]

Available at: http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/Amitasen-242005-marketing-bmw-education-
ppt-powerpoint/
[Accessed 8 5 2013].

Strauss, J., El-Ansary, A. I. & Frost, R., 2006. Uploads: Philadelphia. [Online]
Available at: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Judy+Strauss%2C+Adel+I.+El-
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9
Tsirulnik, G., 2011. BMW introduces mobile app to complement ongoing Joy campaign: Mobile Marketer.
[Online]
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[Accessed 7 5 2013].

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10
Appendix
1. 3500
3000
2500
2000
1500 Net Profit

1000
500
0
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Figure 6: BMW Net Profit

Source: BMW Press

https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/pressclub/p/pcgl/pressDetail.html;jsessionid=rmFsRMKXjCqX6vpgwp
H7Fh2S1qL2LfJCLvwbJx8hgTL2hGqC6rN1!58752007?title=bmw-group-annual-report-
2012&outputChannelId=6&id=T0138203EN&left_menu_item=node__2201

2.

E-mail Postal Mail

Delivery cost per thousand $30 $500

Creative costs to develop $1,000 $17,000

Click through rate 10% N/A

Customer conversion rate 5% 3%

Execution time 3 weeks 3 months

Response time 48 hours 3 weeks

Table 2: Metrics for Electronic and Postal Mail

Source: E-Marketing, 4E, 2006

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