The Mini Advertising Campaign - Case Study Example

 The Mini Advertising Campaign Introduction: The Mini car was first manufactured in 1959, using a transverse mounted engine and a boxy, front wheel drive layout in order to achieve a compact design which still allows for plenty of room inside the car.(www.edmunds.com). The car was in vogue in the 1960s because it was small, stylish and easy to drive and park anywhere. Larger models edged out the Mini in the 70s when it began to look dated. But when BMW took over the Mini Cooper car in 2002, it created an advertising campaign that changed the perception about the small size of the car and turned it into a cool, fun vehicle. Its advertising campaign to promote the Mini car is a brilliant example of persuasive advertising, because it changed the perception about small cars. Consumers in the United States who tend to prefer bigger cars were also as fascinated with the Mini, especially it has been designed with a trendy design as well as fuel efficiency. Despite a tough economic climate, sales of the Mini escalated to 11% in Europe (Abboud, 2008) and its advertisement campaigns only reflect how effectively its qualities and features have been highlighted and promoted through its advertisements. Analysis: Persuasion is essentially the art of causing another person to change their values and attitudes or their external behavior. Some of the essential elements in achieving the goal of persuasion are (a) establishing contact with the customer (a) finding a point of mutual agreement within the vast differences or alternatively, identify the areas of disagreement and present them in a different manner more conducive to achieving a resolution of the disagreement (b) avoiding semantic traps that could lead to misunderstandings and (c) gaining customer confidence and agreement. (McCarthy, 2000). The process of carrying out an advertisement campaign is geared towards the achievement of one specific goal – a sale, by persuading the customer that the advertised product is the best and stands out among the rest. . Before an advertisement can serve as a persuasive tool, it must first be able to snag the attention of a viewer. Most consumers will typically view a print for less than 15 seconds (Pieters, Rosbergen and Hartog, 1996), and will examine it more closely only if their attention is effectively engaged. BMW’s print advertising blitz for the Mini Cooper in 2002 aimed at first grabbing the attention of the viewer within a competing environment of advertisements of other cars all screaming for the attention of consumers. It sought to establish a meaningful contact with the customer by refining its communication tools through the design of its advertisements. Mini’s magazine advertisement easily achieves the feat of standing out from other advertisements, primarily because of the layout format it uses (See Appendix). The advertisement occupies a full two page spread but the car occupies only a small corner, graphically emphasizing its compact dimensions. The juxtaposition of tire tracks with the staples at the centre of the page demonstrates the maneuverability of the car and yet again draws attention to its quality of smallness which makes the car desirable. The lack of clutter on the page only serves to focus and direct the attention of the viewer towards the product. The sparse copywriting in this ad only enhances its efficacy; it is simple, direct and drives the point home the implicature in the ad, or the information that is implicitly communicated to a viewer to adduce meaning.(Sperber and Wilson, 1986). The sparse copywriting merely invites the viewer to try the Mini, and in this instance, the lack of other information about the car only makes it even more attractive and attention gripping. The advertisement capitalizes on the implicature or the ability to go beyond the words and pictures used in it to recover the deeper meaning that is hidden behind those words and images. The persuasive element in this advertisement is not just the image of the tiny car itself, but all that it leaves unsaid about its quality of being able to zip around into places other cars cannot go. This advertisement campaign was released during a time when large cars were the fashion, hence the message conveyed by the advertisements had to successfully identify the difference in the perception of the viewer and the car manufacturer and invite the viewer to look at the smallness of the car in a different manner. The advertisements successfully presented smallness as a positive feature rather than a drawback in a car. Since this particular advertisement was used in conjunction with other promotional ads that showed the Mini atop a truck for example, the car received a cool, fun image that set it apart from its competitors. The ad is an invitation to try the Mini, but it is an invitation that is presented in a unique, stylish format that immediately engages the viewer’s attention and curiosity. It does not stridently make a sales pitch because it says nothing about the car other than by implication and visual subtext. There is no overstatement of the advantages of “small”, which could have produced an instinctive reaction in the customer to disagree. Rather it merely presents the difference in perception within a different context. McQuarrie and Mick (1996) have defined advertising rhetoric as an expression that systematically diverges from the expectation of the viewer by moving away from convention. Through the element of surprise, a viewer is charmed and seduced by the underlying message in the advertisements and the sheer pleasure of the visual experience. This advertisement also achieves the move away from convention, especially in terms of its layout and the sparse copy. It encourages a consumer viewing the advertisement to think differently about the perception of a small car as a disadvantage. Another example of an especially creative Mini advertisement which reinforces this impression is an advertisement in a subway station, where the Mini decal is located at strategic spots with tire tracks on the floor, implying that the Mini has just zipped this way in between the narrow columns. The sheer ingenuity and visual brilliance coupled with its simplicity produce a subtly persuasive effect. The consumer us captivated enough to stop and admire the ads and thereby submits to the subtly persuasive element in them, drawing the consumer perception in favor of the smaller car. The customer’s confidence is slowly but surely secured through subtle persuasion rather than a loud, strident sales pitch. The Mini’s unique selling point is its smaller size and its advertisements are very creatively designed to not only snag the attention of the viewer but also to persuade them to buy the car on the basis of the implied subtext about its quality. The advertisements reflect the unique personality of the car and seek to entertain the viewer and engage him/her in a brand experience geared towards generating a positive outcome. This is especially demonstrated through its online ads. These advertisements convey their message subtly, almost as an aside. The viewer is encouraged to play a fun game with the car and enjoys it, but the experience is topped off in a may that hones in the message about the car’s superior handling. For example, one online ad invites viewers to the “force the Mini off the road” challenge, in which viewers can flip, spin or shake the car in an effort to jerk it off the road (www.imediaconnection.com). This introduces an element of fun and enjoyment into the advertisement – it becomes a pleasant game to be enjoyed rather than being subjected to the hard sell by a persistent salesman. It also engages the viewer in an interactive experience and since all attempts to shake off the Mini naturally fail, the advertiser is able to hone in the message that outstanding holding on the road ensures the Mini’s success on the road. It’s just one sentence that comes at the end of the game, almost as an afterthought but it is akin to a successful clincher, putting out the message which is intended. Conclusion: The Mini advertisement campaign has been phenomenally successful and is a good example of how customers have been persuaded to give up their preference for the large cars and buy the small cars. During the ongoing recession, when most auto manufacturers are facing huge losses that have forced them to go cap-in-hand to the Government for aid, the Mini Cooper is flush with a 11% jump in sales.(Abboud, 2008). Through its subtle advertisement campaign, the Company has been able to put across the other qualities of the car such as its fuel efficiency, ease in handling, speed and maneuverability. Although factor sin the environment, such as the rising prices of gas have aided in the increase in Mini’s sales because it is a fuel efficient car, nevertheless it is worthwhile to note that the campaign essentially was able to identify at the outset the single, most important point of disagreement between the customer’s perception and the perception of the car company – the size of the car. The persuasive task was successful largely because of the ability of the BMW Company to convince customers, even die-hard large-car-favoring American car buyers to prefer small over large. If the Company had focused on other elements, its campaign might not have been so successful because the instinctive tendency within the customer would have been to immediately disagree, or fail to heed the positive message about the car due to the prevalent unfavorable perception about small cars as outdated and cramped. The value of its positive messages about other qualities of the car would have been lost in the strident chorus of the customer’s disagreement about the main element – the size. The BMW campaign this strategically focused upon the single largest area of disagreement and then turned it around such that it was presented in a different manner. It did not forcibly try to force the customer to change views, because this would only have produced a digging in to the existing stance of the customer about small being undesirable. Rather the advertisements invited the customer to look at the concept of size in a different manner to examine whether any agreement could be reached on the desirability of the car, not despite its small size but because of its small size. Once this most important disagreement was addressed, a common resolution could be reached such that the customer enjoyed a more favorable perception about a small sized car – viewing it as a fun, cool and chic. This established the foundation for the Company to work further on convincing the customer about other features of the car in an equally subtle manner. The online ads are able to transfer the sales message at the point where the customer engaged in the game is at his or her most receptive frame of mind, having just been through an enjoyable experience. Targeting the message delivery at precisely this point is an extremely persuasive tool, with high chances of a positive outcome in terms of customer receptivity. References: * Abboud, Leila, 2008. “Small European cars shine”, The Wall Street Journal, December 1, 2008, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122817265705770477.html?mod=googlenews_wsj; * Creative Showcase. http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/2116.asp; * McCarthy, John J, 2000. “Elements of Persuasion”, http://ewweb.com/mag/electric_elements_persuasion_2/; * McQuarrie, Edward F. and David Glen Mick, 1996. "Figures of Rhetoric in Advertising Language," Journal of Consumer Research, 22: 424-438 * Mini Cooper Review. http://www.edmunds.com/mini/cooper/review.html; * Pieters, Rik G. M., Edward Rosbergen, and Michel Hartog, 1996. "Visual attention to advertising: The impact of motivation and repetition,' Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 23 * Sperber D. and D. Wilson (1986). Relevance: Communication and cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2nd ed. 1995. APPENDIX 1. The Mini’s Magazine advertisement: (Source: http://inventorspot.com/articles/mini_cooper_no_small_advertising_6530) The Mini Cooper Subway ad: Source: http://joeieragraphicdesign.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/92668768_a15ba815c91.jpg Read More