Mediaboss Marketing

Steven Althaus's moment of digital truth came this past spring. BMW's global director of brand management stood in front of top management, telling them the automaker was about to use a drift mob to help market their new car, the M235i.

Five professional drivers were set to go behind the wheel of the M235is and driftor drive at high speeds, hit the brakes, and turn the steering wheel to spin the car abruptlyaround a traffic circle in Cape Town, South Africa. Their aim was to simulate a flash mob; a staged but seemingly spontaneous performance.

BMW executives fired off questions to Althaus that veered toward disbelief. I presented the idea of a drift mob and they said: 'Is this really going to work?' I had to say, I dont know. Nobodys done it before, Althaus recalls.

BMW wouldnt launch the video as a commercial, but pushed it out through /DRIVE, a popular YouTube channel dedicated to cars. The drift mob was part of a proposed new social media marketing strategy for BMW. Up until that point, the company had done a reasonable job with the first wave of social media tools.

Of course were on Facebook, Twitter . . . says Sebastian Schwiening, a 29-year-old digital marketing manager. He started at BMW in 2010, fresh out of the University of Kiel business school in Germany.

The German automobile company has more than 19 million Likes on Facebook, 602,000 Twitter followers, and a YouTube channel with more than 400,000 subscribers.

But as of early 2014, the company hadnt so much as put a Twitter hashtag into its advertising. Schwiening occasionally found himself having awkward conversations with senior marketing management over social media tactics he was trying, like a short video of two BMWs kissing that went up on Instagram. The video didnt fit in with BMWs self-image, but it did draw 70,000 hearts, Instagrams version of a like.

Hearts werent in upper managements lexicon, though. Normally, we just report use on things like our channels and website, Schwiening says. For me its tricky to explain that its better to have uplift in social engagement than clicks on our sites.

Althaus says he was intrigued by what Schwiening and BMW's online marketing department head, Florian Resinger, were trying with social media. Althaus had noticed during the 2014 Super Bowl that almost all of the other advertisers14 out of 20were using hashtags in their commercials. He wanted to see BMW adopt hashtags in its branding.

How could BMW explore this? Companies know the risks of engaging on social mediathey can damage their brands by pandering to trends, while consumers can say damaging things about brands that go out over a specific hashtag. Adopting hashtags meant BMW would loosen control of its brand messaging.

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The Man Who Convinced BMW To Rethink Social Media