Olympics + 3 Series + Free Service: Enough for BMW to keep luxe lead in 2012?

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Filed under: Marketing/Advertising, Videos, BMW, Luxury



BMW has long had an advantage over Mercedes-Benz and Lexus when it comes to maintenance and ownership costs that it has hardly ever advertised - free maintenance for the first four years of ownership. The secret will be no more as the company is about to unleash a major ad push behind the program known as BMW Ultimate Service.

The ads, done by BMW's ad agency, Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners, which took BMW's whole ad account assignment last August, are set inside a BMW dealership and draw on comedy to depict the surprise and even incredulity that four years of free maintenance comes with every new Bimmer. In one spot, for example, a woman thinks the promise of free maintenance is a come-on, and she reminds the salesman that she is married. In another spot, a man buying a BMW thinks he has to give the salesman sports tickets in order to get the deal.

BMW's marketing chief Dan Creed says the ad campaign, for which there are 27 different possible endings to the vignettes between salesman and customer, is timed right for a market of luxury buyers, which, though seemingly fully recovered from the economic death march of 2008-2010, is still looking for value along with their luxury.

"The expectation and widely held belief that BMW has very expensive maintenance costs is still a big factor in why people bypass us when shopping, and we think we have a very efficient way of changing that perception here," says Creed. "Mercedes, Lexus, and our other competitors don't have this, and we are going to use it as a meaningful point of difference."

Scroll down below for more on BMW's upcoming ads and to watch the videos.Continue reading Olympics + 3 Series + Free Service: Enough for BMW to keep luxe lead in 2012?

Olympics + 3 Series + Free Service: Enough for BMW to keep luxe lead in 2012? originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 10 May 2012 15:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.



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