May 22nd 2019 was Retirement Day for Mercedes-Benz CEO Dieter Zetsche.

This was a big deal, as he stepped down after 13 years of being at the helm of Mercedes.

Dr. Zetsche was the public face of Mercedes - easily recognizable with his signature moustache look which he hasn't changed in decades. He even starred in commercials for the brand as Dr. Z.

So the retirement of Mr. Zetsche was sure to make headlines - internationally.

So we needed an idea.

How could BMW pay an honest tribute to this much-respected competitor?

And maybe leverage the great public attention on the Mercedes CEO to score one for BMW as well?

A tribute documentary style film with twinkle-in-the-eye humor. A film showing Mercedes CEO Dieter Zetsche saying good-bye to his colleagues on retirement day – only to arrive at home and - finally - being able to drive his secret desire: a BMW.

He was free at last. It was a fake documentary, of course.

So on a day were all the spotlight was supposed to be on Mercedes, we enabled BMW to share a bit of the limelight – for almost no cost.

The main message is simple:

BMW cars are so enjoyable, that even the big boss of Mercedes would rather drive one. Of course, he’d had to wait until his retirement to do so.

The target audience is basically anyone, with a basic knowledge of both brands: BMW and Mercedes.

Since these two brands are among the world’s elite brands, our simple message was understandable and relatable by the public at large. Proven by the fact that many general news media reported about the film.

All we did was to post the film on BMW’s media channels – then we waited for the KOL and other community members to spread the word and share it.

So this film moved different target groups, loyal BMW customers, as well as loyal Mercedes fans who respected our BMW’s creativity and last not least the general public without a strong interest in automotive.

The media’s and the public attention would be highest on Dr. Zetsches actual retirement day. Therefore, we released the video simultaneously on all relevant Social Media channels of BMW – a potential reach of 45 million – and hoped for it gather momentum, which it did quickly.

There was no other paid media spending in this.

The news media had substantial coverage of the film, from Germany’s public channel late evening news to Germany‘s number one newspaper website. Also, many international media reported about the film.

The video posts on Social Media had 23.5 Million reach, generating 8.5 millions views on BMW's owned channels alone.

It was also BMW's most successful Twitter post ever.

With a production budget of 200k and no media budget, we earned an activity media value of 28.8 Million Euro.

There were more online discussions about the Zetsche post, than there were about the previous to car model launches from BMW.

Page visits to the BMW i8 page – the coupé driven by Dr. Zetsche in the film – went up by 37% following the film release compared to the pre-release week.