The MINI owner community is one of the brand’s greatest assets. To fully engage and deepen the evangelism of MINI owners, we created a campaign that only they could fully read. Since it required message encryption, we began to call the idea “Covert.” Think of Covert as Mission Impossible meets James Bond meets advertising. Every owner officially becomes a secret agent on a mission to decode and decrypt messages. At the same time, non-owners understand that buying a MINI is about much more than buying a car. You become part of something larger: a car with a built-in community.

To kick off the campaign, 150,000 MINI owners were sent three decoder tools hidden inside a phony book. Each tool gave them the ability to read three encrypted ads, whose covert messages led them on a journey through three different websites. These websites featured a wide variety of quirky characters and situations, and a hidden link for owners to enter their VIN number. Those who did so received a reward. The first was an exclusive invitation to MINI Takes the States, a cross-country road trip. Remaining rewards included things like medallions, bumper stickers and other fun stuff.