Marketing advisors to iconic brands & pioneering agencies
Marketing advisors to iconic brands & pioneering agencies
CP+B launched an entirely new automobile brand to America. They had a cheeky, small, unique product to work with. And a society hooked on big, gas-guzzling SUVs and bland sedans to convince.
By making this “cultural tension” work for them, CP+B elevated MINI into iconic status, deftly avoiding the serious risk of launching a cute, nostalgic, niche-market fad (PT Cruiser, Fiat, VW New Beetle).
“Let’s Motor” invited everyone to be open to what exciting transportation could be. Using outdoor and print in non-traditional ways, being early adopters of “viral” digital, and thinking of the entire consumer journey long before all these became part of every brand’s playbook, MINI created a loyal customer following and curious pubic that helped sell every car MINIUSA could produce.
The idea behind print inserts was that if you gave people something of value instead of an ad, people would pass it along to their friends.
And if you needed an excuse to motor, we helped by giving you an empty milk carton that needed replacing right away.
This insert was for those needing a slalom course to motor in.
All MINIs come standard with Whiptastic Handling; this insert allowed you to add that feature to your bumper.
Customization was a big theme for MINI in general and many inserts allowed motorers to make their own ride unique.
This series makes the point that the theme of progress is to make useful things more compact.
To launch the Cooper convertible the idea was to be “always open”. That even meant eliminating the top color border on every convertible ad.
These neon billboards were placed in red light districts in several cities. The top opened and closed, teasing the viewer to want to see more.
These two pages wouldn’t open unless you tore them along a perforation. Only the most open and curious would go find a MINI ad made just for them.
Pulling down the polybag on the back cover of Playboy opened the MINI convertible.
Those signing the contract to keep their top down at all times would receive a plastic cover that fit over their roof button. Similar to the safety system for large weapons, the Motorer would have to deliberately open the cover to close the roof.
Today we would call this campaign “integrated”. At the time it was one of the first “viral” digital ideas. The effort included print, outdoor, five fake websites, and three toy Robots available at retailers.
We just wanted to tell a compelling story about a benevolent, rogue engineer who built a giant robot from MINI parts and used his power for good.
An excerpt of “Men of Metal” a 37-page booklet was inserted into magazines with easter eggs that allowed sleuths to find websites belonging to the author, the engineer, a conspiracy theorist and a journalist.