How TRO drove BMW over the finish line with two supercharged events

With a world premiere of the new BMW 2 Series Coupe and a series of thrilling and pioneering products to showcase, we created a turbo-charged experience for all visitors across two sites: M Town and BMW Electric Boulevard. Entertainment and innovation were at the heart the experiences across both sites, with performances to surprise and delight.

Even with a reduced budget and attendee numbers, we still managed to smash our sales leads and contact KPIs, as well as attracting a conquest audience that made up three quarters of the total visitors. BMW received the highest online media share of voice of any of the automotive brands at the event, with 70% of visitors from both sites sharing their BMW experiences online.

Objectives

Ahead of GFOS, BMW set its objectives. It wanted to promote two story themes, ‘Thrilling’, showcasing the latest new M models, and ‘Pioneering’, with the latest electric BMW models. It also wanted to integrate the world premiere of the new BMW 2 Series Coupe as well as promoting the UK premieres of the BMW i4, iX, M4 Competition Convertible, M4 Kith & M5 CS model. These would make BMW the talk of the festival if all activations were memorable and shareable.

Our goal was to get people to feel differently about BMW and reach a conquest audience by telling thrilling and pioneering stories through shared experiences, ultimately utilizing GFOS as a springboard to find that sweet spot between product and lifestyle. In addition to this, we collaboratively set some KPIs with BMW:

• Generating 250 sales leads

• Adding 1300 contacts to the BMW database

• Drive 500 MyBMW app sign-ups

• Social amplification of all activity +20% vs 2019

Strategy

At a time when most of the world was playing it safe and scaling down event activations, we worked with BMW to ensure its presence at GFOS was bigger and better than ever. We had to make more impact, on a reduced budget, by getting smart and thinking about content and experience first.

GFOS was set to be one of, if not the very first large-scale events post pandemic and we needed to get it right. The strategy from the start was to create a turbo-charged experience for fans reuniting for the first time, flexible enough to meet the ever-changing Covid-19 guidelines and keep all crew, brand ambassadors, fans and clients safe.

Our solution was to build an enriching experience for the fans (and soon to be fans!), keeping storytelling at the heart of the experience. It was crucial we give the breadth of BMW products their own space to shine so we created two BMW sites:

• M Town, showcasing the latest M models in a whirlwind of thrilling activities, providing continuous attention-grabbing wow factor and operating at ‘Turbo’ pace.

• BMW Electric Boulevard, a serene and sustainable ‘Charged’ space with a unique showcase of electric cars never previously seen in the UK, and content to educate, intrigue and convert fans.

M Town featured a number of touchpoints. The Duke of Richmond opened the festival at M Town with a live reveal of the static car, a world premiere streamed to Facebook. This was immediately followed by a dynamic reveal of the car, first up the hill climb.

Live performances and surprise-and-delight moments continued throughout the festival: DJ sets, including a celebrity guest set from Edith Bowman, parkour performances that were integrated into the product displays and live revving engines, and an electric guitarist to build a unique track for break dancers.

BMW Friends of the Brand interviews with Paul O’Neil and the BMW Motorsport Drivers spoke to new and existing motorsport fans. O’Neil also hosted educational product walkarounds with a range of BMW experts, cast onto a huge LED screen for all to enjoy. He also commentated on the SIM racing competition, where the fastest lap time of the day won an opportunity to race against a BMW British Touring Car professional driver. Each daily winner had their moment in the limelight, and the races drew huge crowds and queues.

At the BMW Grandstand and VIP lounge, BMW owners and media guests could enjoy unique and thrilling views of the hill climb track. At the M Collection lifestyle shop, we showcased M and Motorsport merchandise, integrating the aftersales area of the business.

There were many photo opportunities including the M Town @ Goodwood photo wall, creating opportunities to share on social, branded to include hashtag and bespoke IG stickers.

It was the first UK showing of M3 Competition, M4 Competition Convertible, M5 CS and i4 M50.

BMW Electric Boulevard touchpoints included product displays, the first UK showing of the i4 and ix as well as the first electric BMW, the 1602e. The story of 50 years of BMW electric vehicles was creatively communicated on a display wall showcasing BMW’s pioneering and innovative leadership in the EV space.

A Formula E display model and innovative behind the scenes FE virtual pit garage tour demonstrated BMW’s pioneering sense of adventure. The MyBMW App Genius bar had a product expert on hand, offering live demonstrations of the app to BMW owners.

We hosted BMW Friends of the Brand interviews, with Edith Bowman and Paul Ainsworth as well as live product walk arounds with Jodie Kidd. Electric violinist performances charged the space and created a sophisticated atmosphere - totally unique at the festival and totally fitting for the BMW electric product range.

At the Boulevard Bar, we served champagne to customers and VIPs, encouraging dwell time and therefore brand immersion in the space.

Across both sites, we used entertainment, thought leadership content and talent to creatively immerse people in our ‘thrilling’ and ‘pioneering’ spaces. It was crucial for us that instead of telling people BMW has these qualities, we showed them through engaging and innovative experiences, enriching their time at GFOS and positioning BMW as the must-see brand on site (and on socials, for those that couldn’t be with us in person).

Results

Our BMW activation at GFOS was extremely effective: we attracted a conquest audience of comprising three-quarters of the visitor total, which was a key objective as well as exceeding our engaged footfall target for M Town. We also saw a 56% positive attitude change having visited us. In addition to this, we smashed the KPIs set out at the start of the event with:

• 43% more sales leads than the target

• Over a thousand additional contacts signed up to receive BMW marketing

• Almost a thousand MyBMW App sign-ups gained during the event, double what we were asked to achieve

As the event had a reduced visitor count in comparison to previous years, we knew we had to make a splash on socials too, extending the in-person experience online. BMW received the largest online media share of voice of any of the auto brands across the event dates with over 30,000 UGC social shares, meaning 70% of visitors to the stand shared images or videos, achieving BMW’s objective of memorable and shareable experiences. In addition to the user-generated content, we saw some incredible social reach figures from the event including:

• 6m reach on Facebook alone for 2 Series world premiere at M Town

• 450k social media impressions and 11.5k engagements generated from Influencer content alone

• Over 8m impressions

• Over 92,000 engagements

• Over 1m views of video content

This campaign was a winner at The Drum Awards for Experience. To find out more, including which competitions are currently open for entry, visit The Drum Awards website.