MINI has been always part of pop culture, but in the last decade, parts of the ease, playfulness and brand heat was lost – especially among younger audiences.

For MINI it was about reviving the iconic status as the most beloved pop cultural car brand and to create awareness for a new electric concept car among Gen-Y and Gen-Z gaming audiences.

With no new release on the horizon Pokémon was on the verge of playing no part in the first gamescom after COVID – the world's biggest gaming event.

Together with MINI the brand was looking for a way to connect with its core community.

For the first Gamescom after COVID and with a multitude of publishers and big releases, we needed our collaboration to stand out.

Instead of going into the Entertainment hall, we went to the merchandise area, where no major brands are but which has the highest footfall of the whole convention.

And in true merchandise fashion, we created a life-sized action figure like toy packaging for our joint concept car.

At the same time we asked fans worldwide via a sponsored reddit post what kind of Pokémon themed features they would want to see in a limited production run of a Pokémon MINI. We credited the most creative answers and engaged with the community by speaking their language, using memes and all in all showing the same passion and love for the topic as they did.

Car brands which want to appeal to younger audiences will not find them at automotive conventions like the IAA, Paris Autosaloon or Shanghai Motorshow.

Instead they need to be where the community comes to celebrate its love.

Hence MINI launched its concept car in the very heart of contemporary pop-culture: Gamescom – the biggest gaming convention in the world.

To tap into the passion point of the gaming community MINI needed a strong partner. So the brand collaborated with the strongest gaming franchsie of them all: Pokémon!

A match guaranteed to electrify the audience at the event and the gaming community worldwide.

Together with The Pokémon Company, MINI created an experience that gave the community more of what they loveand ways to connect deeper with what they love.

At the same time we engaged the community around the globe via the channels they use and through the language they speak.

The pre and post-campaign measurement on our brand values showed the undeniable synergy of this collab.

The collaboration achieved over 850 million media impressions.

Online brand mentioning went up by 1600%.

52% of the community changed their mind about the MINI brand and 56% wanted to receive more information!

Even more so, by placing Pokémon like trojan horse at Gamescom, we created news value without having any news.

Despite the tough field of competitors and no anticipated release we got all the eyes on Pokémon, thus helping Pokémon and MINI to manifest and underline their status as pop-cultural mega-icons.