BMW Video: The Essential Guide to Creating Marketing Videos

A famous Leo Burnett saying: The secret of all effective advertising is not the creation of new and tricky words and pictures, but one of putting familiar words and pictures into new relationships. Are these videos a secret marketing strategy? Probably not. But you can certainly learn from them. This BMW video does display some great hidden truths.

Have you seen these two recent BMW videos? Watch them both here … each is only 60 seconds.

We will then examine each video and what contributes to their strengths and weaknesses and their ability to influence or persuade.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEvpnKRLDO4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15bQjiwzgUA&feature=youtu.be

How many times do you hear “I want my video to go viral”? To make this happen you have to create content that is pretty innovative, exciting and cool so that your audience will want to share. Well here’s the kind of video that ticks all those boxes. BMW Canada has released these videos which have been viewed over 7 million times (at time of writing).

The first one was the most popular and it became the number one worldwide auto video on YouTube after just 2 days. The title of the first video makes you think that you’ll be seeing BMW cars taking on concrete walls and losing. The video is pretty clever and keeps you on the edge of your chair as you watch it.

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Marketing or advertising, you need to create information that your customers find interesting and worth talking about and remembering. These videos certainly achieve this goal, don’t you think?

Let’s evaluate other keys to effective marketing strategy in these videos:

BMW video show… don’t tell

Certainly, BMW could have talked about its cars design features, in all its technical glory. But that is not the best way to create a story that holds an audience’s attention. It is a much better approach to show the capabilities in person, but if that can’t be done, then an effective video is the next best thing.

It is the only way to effectively to communicate messages to 7 million+ viewers.

Grab and hold viewers’ attention

Grab attention with interesting information.  Keep in mind that people don’t watch ads … they watch what interests them. Your ad messages must be interesting to your target communities. This video certainly grabs and holds attention based on simple emotion.

Be relevant to your target market

Keep in mind that one message does not fit all. It starts with knowing your target market. Here the target market is people who like fast, stylish automobiles with a focus on sound driving capabilities.

Perhaps they secretly desire to be race car drivers? These videos are certainly relevant to this market.

Define your positioning

Your positioning is your frame of reference.  Make comparisons to your competitors if you can. BMW certainly knows who its major competitors are and but chooses to not take them on in these videos. A good move we believe.

Define a value proposition

Build unique selling points that truly discriminates you from your competition. Give your customers reasons to select you.

Maybe not the most significant visible feature, it does illustrate BMW as a company that puts a high priority on great automobile design and driving capabilities, which is their clear objective.

BMW video … make your messages simple

Simple messages that the reader will quickly understand are the most effective. Keep in mind that pictures are far more valuable than words.

And of course, a video shows much more than pictures. Creating customer emotion does not get any simpler or more memorable than this, does it?

Consider the end state values to your customers

Customers and particularly the target customers are looking for new and better auto design features. No reason to buy without these and the marketing strategy certainly is addressing this end state in our opinion.

The videos do not address any specific design features other than turning and maneuverability capabilities. Show, don’t tell is a great strategy, isn’t it?

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Influence and persuasion

There is no better means of influence or persuasion than emotion. Emotion is the best, hands down the best, in our opinion. This commercial focuses on emotional appeal in grand fashion.

It is the secret of these videos success and what makes the marketing strategy most effective.

Remember, it is not what advertising does with the consumer; it is what the consumer does after viewing the advertisement.

After looking over these enablers, we believe BMW has created a very effective marketing strategy. What do you think? Can these videos persuade you?

What are some of your experiences with videos as a component of an integrated marketing campaign?

So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you. But believe in the effectiveness of word of mouth marketing created by remarkable customer service. And put it to good use.

It’s up to you to keep improving your creative marketing strategies. Lessons are all around you. In this case, your competitor may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.

When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.

Try. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?

Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change.  We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.

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