Why BMW’s Marketing Approach Is Likely Back to Moviemaking

German luxury vehicle manufacturer BMW aims to emulate the Hollywood experience all over again through its advertising and marketing. Just after a seven-year absence, the brand movie collection, BMW Films, will be resurrected.

This return is established alongside the release of a shorter movie featuring Uma Thurman, Pom Klementieff and a BMW i7 M70. The film will be screened at the Cannes Film Competition afterwards this thirty day period.

Results for BMW Films began in 2001 with an award-profitable shorter film sequence named The Employ the service of, starring Clive Owen and overseen by filmmaker David Fincher’s creation organization.

The James Bond-impressed shorts produced eight entries at considerably less than 10 minutes each that had been essentially excuses to showcase BMWs in car chases. They also incorporated performances from stars such as Madonna, James Brown and Gary Oldman while directed by action masters such as John Woo, John Frankenheimer, Tony Scott and Dude Ritchie.

BMW Movies went on to generate a handful of other shorts, with the past a person, The Escape, performing as a sequel with Owen returning in 2016.

“We are in enjoy with our historical legacy when it will come to BMW movies,” Stefan Ponikva, vp and president of model communication and brand expertise for BMW, told Adweek. “I often describe it as ‘a treasure’ for the reason that the team in 2001 did not know what a dramatic and iconic occupation they did.”

He highlights why the films ended up so groundbreaking, getting created in a period of time just before YouTube even existed. The primary sequence ended up remaining produced on DVD as it was the only way audiences could check out all of the episodes jointly in a person location.

The initially silent automobile chase

Absent from it’s output, BMW has shut ties to the movie field throughout Hollywood and streaming platforms, these types of as Netflix, obtaining autos surface in over 30,000 videos more than the a long time, together with Mission Impossible: Fallout, Quickly and Furious 6, Ronin and Goldeneye.

The new film, The Calm, has been created in partnership with the movie festival and sees BMW again choose the branded technique to moviemaking, which Ponikva describes as “entering an period of storytelling and not of ordinary marketing, where by we drive vehicles into our revenue funnel.”

Bringing back again the movie focus arrives as BMW seeks to encourage its all-electrical vehicle—the i7 M70—which it views as its “flagship” electrical luxurious auto featuring a 31-inch display with surround audio for passengers’ viewing in the back again.

And in a distinctive design and style of a generate-in motion picture, the film will premiere within just the fleet of 200 cars and trucks at Cannes, wherever it was filmed. Patrons from the competition will be in a position to check out the small film whilst seated in the passenger seats.