As one of the first mobile marketing innovators BMW has set the bar for manufacturers looking to target a specific demographic on a service level. Like BMW 62% of companies are increasing their mobile marketing budget and in some cases disregarding all other marketing campaigns. Many marketing experts are realising that mobile offers a completely unique way to interact with their customer base and reach full sale potential.

The head of BMW digital media, Marc Mielau, made the call to start channelling marketing campaigns through mobile media channels and hasn't looked back. Most recently BMW promoted their 1 series saying they could "conquer young people through the mobile channel". BMW even launched Nokia mobile phones with preinstalled 1 series content and developed a downloadable racing game with customisable cars showing off the cars fresh rear design during game play. Mielau said "We got 75,000 downloads which - at that time - was an amazing success".



BMW avoided straight forward advertising through mobile marketing saying "advertising in not value!" BMW believe you can save time or kill time; save time when their busy and kill time if they are not. So they target the appropriate demographic and only deliver useful content rather than spamming their entire customer base with every campaign regardless of their current service needs.
One of their campaigns actually converted over 30% of their recipients to sale which is a huge success for any marketing campaign. Other successful BMW initiatives include:

• Texting German customers reminding them to fit winter tyres before the snow season with a call to action leading them to a local dealer
• A downloadable game following on from their Z4 TV adverts with the model spreading colour around a large canvas

BMW have followed a few simple rules to achieve success:

• Accurate targeting
• Viral concepts
• Appeal on a personal level
• Be helpful not annoying
• Optimise content for recipient technologies
• Use mobile as a service channel not advertising

BMW for now are looking to continue servicing their clients through mobile innovations. It will be interesting to see what they come up with next.