With New Ad, Even BMW Hops on Fuel-Economy Bandwagon
By Michelle Krebs June 20, 2008By Dale Buss
With a new TV commercial breaking on Monday, BMW plans to add its silver-plated brand to the parade of automakers that have turned to fuel-economy boasts to sell their vehicles in a market that has become obsessed with shifting to vehicles that obtain better gas mileage.
BMW's spot on several cable TV channels will promote the fact that the German luxury maker has "eight models that get more than 28 mpg on the highway," Patrick McKenna, manager of marketing and consumer events for BMW in the United States, told AutoObserver.
The models touted will include 128i coupe and convertible, 328i sedan and coupe, 528i sedan, and three versions of the Z4.
Fuel-Efficient Heritage
As a company, BMW managed to post an overall sales increase of 3 percent in May, but that was because of surging sales of its Mini brand. For the flagship BMW brand, sales fell by nearly 5 percent in May compared with a year ago.
BMW and other leading luxury brands are beginning to encounter strong headwinds from U.S. economic uncertainties created by the housing mess and credit crunch, in addition to high gas prices. But its executives determined that they could make more of an explicit fuel-economy play toward American consumers who are increasingly conscious of, if not worried about, gasoline-price increases -- and about what they communicate by what they drive.
Still, McKenna said that corporate executives have been going back and forth about the decision to enter the fuel-economy marketing derby for the last few weeks and that they even tested some mileage-oriented themes -- versus their usual emphasis on "no-cost maintenance" -- in online campaigns.
"Where we come from," the ad says, showing shots of Germany, "high fuel prices are nothing new." BMW also considered making the claim that it is the only luxury-car company that can boast so many models that generate more than 28 mpg on the highway, but it isn't clear yet if the ad will actually make that claim. BMW also has 22 models that obtain 25 mpg on the highway or better, McKenna said.
Shift Creates Relevance
The ad will start appearing on cable networks including ESPN, Fox, CNN, Discovery, Speed and the Golf Channel.
The BMW spot will be reminiscent of the ubiquitous Chevrolet ad that boasts that the General Motors division offers "6 models that get at least 30 mpg" on the highway. But interestingly, BMW's ad is essentially the same one that BMW ran for a while last year, to relatively little notice -- though the new version slightly updates the number of models and mileage information.
Last year, the similar ad said that BMW had six models that each gained at least 30 mpg. "But the EPA standard changed, and we also added the 1 Series," McKenna said, explaining the difference in the new ad.
"It's amazing because the relevance of it is so much higher now, and the attention it's getting from dealers and internally is so much more intense now, because people are so much more focused on fuel economy," McKenna said.
"For people who may think we're just a performance-car company and not fuel-efficient, we want to make sure they know this part of the story," McKenna said. "We've been engineering toward fuel economy for decades."
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