Situation:

Americans are buying big vehicles. Sales of SUVs and Trucks in the US are increasing year over year, as traditional car & sedan sales are declining.

Not good news for MINI, a brand that, even before you sit in it and drive it, stands for small. As a result, sales of MINIs have been on the decline.

Brief:

Give MINI at least a fighting chance to get into the consideration set of American SUV shoppers.

The creative task was to reframe the idea of “space” to an American audience for a car that most Americans think is too small – MINI. So we referenced the most American icon there is – The Cowboy. And one of the oldest American cowboy songs – “Don’t Fence Me In” by Cole Porter. Then modernized both with a contemporary musician and new spin on“space.”The result was a newly imagined anthem for urban dwellers in search of physical and mental space. The hero of our story is Labrinth, a musician who gets creatively stuck and needs a moment to clear his head. As he drives around in a MINI Countryman, the city around him empties out – or so he it feels like to him. Giving him space for inspiration, which causes him to sing his version, “Don’t Fence Me In.”

The MINI Countryman, the biggest and most SUV-like of the MINI lineup, is often overlooked as a contender among American SUV shoppers. For one thing, it’s a MINI, and MINI means small when they’re on the hunt for big, and most shoppers don’t even know it exists (There’s very low model awareness of the MINI Countryman).

The opportunity was to position the Countryman as “more” even as audiences associated MINI with “less.” But, not more in terms of bells & whistles or even trunk space, more in terms of headspace - to think, to create. More in terms of opportunity for city-dwellers to escape and find creative freedom.

• Timeline 1/15/2019-3/1/2019

In Jan. 2019, MINI launched the new national integrated campaign that ran through March. Videos featuring Labrinth in the MINI Countryman, and his new song, ran on TV and online with end cards driving people to listen to the full track on the uniquely created landing page: miniusa.com/dontfencemein. The webpage served as a home for the track via Spotify, campaign videos, and images of Labrinth with the MINI Countryman. Digital banners and social posts also drove viewers to Behind the Scenes content that showcased Labrinth in the studio, ideating on his modern rendition of the old classic ‘Don’t Fence Me In’ track. Those posts were pushed out on social, IG stories being a prominent placement for the uniquely created interview-like videos. Labrinth also posted 3 personal posts on his own social pages of him during the shoot promoting the partnership throughout key milestones.

The campaign achieved 22,399 organic video views and 112MM+ TV impressions, and reached 6MM people through online video alone. We saw 1,049 social actions, and 779,235 overall song streams (Spotify on 712,416; 66,819 on Pandora). The campaign was picked up by Variety.

In terms of impact, the campaign drove 155 dealer visits during campaign flight, as well as 76K microsite visits (making up 8% of total site traffic).