THE POST-PURCHASE BUZZKILL

Buying a BMW is an exciting experience. Once customers receive their new vehicle, however, they can often feel a significant drop in brand love as the relationship changes from courtship to transactional, dominated by service reminders and aftersales messages. This critical part of the customer journey is notoriously difficult terrain for automotive marketers. And the stakes are high: as loyalty levels during ownership are a leading indicator for future purchase intent and overall lifetime value.

BRIEF

Engage current BMW owners with an experience-based program that deepens loyalty and excites fandom during the critical ownership phase of the customer journey.

OBJECTIVES

• Spark engagement among BMW owners and fans.

• Deepen the perceived value of ownership, a bellwether of loyalty and repeat purchase.

• Generate awareness and appreciation of an iconic (but under-penetrated) brand asset.

• Bolster BMW’s innovation credentials at a time of unprecedented category change (electrification).

A WINDOW INTO BRAND LOVE

Though not widely known, the rear window of a BMW contains powerful DNA to the brand’s originality and performance dynamics. If we could activate the Hofmeister Kink for modern audiences, we could deepen loyalty, stimulate joyful engagement, and have owners look again at their BMW with fresh eyes – reappraisal.

THE HOFMEISTER KINK

An AI-driven data visualization that turns a hidden-in-plain-sight design detail into a 1-to-1 drivable brand experience for owners and fans.

A NEW WAY TO EXPERIENCE THE BRAND

Although originally designed as a window shape, it turns out that Hofmeister Kink-shaped roads are also fantastic showcases for BMW’s legendary cornering abilities. In addition to revealing a key brand asset in the country’s landscape, our idea creates a new way to experience the brand, and helps owners and fans look at the roads around them with renewed excitement.

GATHERING DATA, TRAINING A MACHINE

Because the Hofmeister Kink has been expressed in many ways across years and models, our artificial intelligence needed to find a family of shapes. We started by cataloging images of every BMW model since 1962, then created vectorized versions of each model’s ‘Kink’. These 64 vectorized curves were the foundation for our synthetic training set (30,720 variant images), supported by Google Colab for machine learning and a neural framework, Darknet, for computation. Then we trained the model using a convolutional neural network, running detection on the +10-million-mile U.S. road network.

TRUE, DATA-ENABLED 1:1

If the general population discovers HofmesiterKink.com organically or through paid media, a BMW owner’s first experience of the site is more individualized, when they receive an email enabled by data in BMW’s owner ID records. These are rich, real-time datasheets containing owner name, model, year, household income, location and more.

TRAINING THE TECH

The Hofmeister Kink shape itself is not a simple, repeated angle or curvature. It is, instead, a signature three-point gesture that has been expressed in many ways across years and models. We needed our artificial intelligence to find not just one shape, but a family of shapes.

We started by cataloging images of every BMW model produced since 1962, then created vectorized versions of each model’s individual ‘Kink’. These 64 vectorized ‘Kink curves’ became the foundation for our custom-created synthetic training set made up of 30,720 variant images, supported by Google Colab for machine learning and the open-source neural framework, Darknet, for computation. From there, we trained the model using a convolutional neural network (AI), running detection on the vast U.S. road network, which spans +10 million miles – all the way through to its integration with BMW’s CRM systems, and eventual activation as a 1:1 experience for the owners in BMW’s database.

CONNECTED KINKS

There were probably easier ways to find a couple Hofmeister Kink-shaped roads. But we wanted to find them all. And at the end of it all we wanted rich and connected data. Throughout development, we looked to maximize compatibility across datasets: shape data connects to geo data, which connects to stunning satellite image data, which connects to owner ID records, which connects to deeplinks to every Kink on our site.

INNOVATION IN EMAIL

Activating this project is a powerful, innovative, effective and highly creative email activation. Here +2.5 million emails offer much more than a thin slice of a bigger creative idea. They activate it, each one making the Kink individually relevant and real for BMW owners.

PLACEMENT

• Online experience at HofmeisterKink.com

• +2.5 million individualized emails

• Paid social across Meta

• 90-second launch film on BMW USA’s YouTube

During the ownership phase when automotive brands often prioritize transactional messages, we gave BMW a way to engage owners with a compelling brand experience made individually relevant.

ENGAGING NEW AUDIENCES

• 10,800,000 miles of road analyzed.

• 2,500,000 individualized emails sent to owners

• 1,300,000 emails opened (42.7% open rate)

• 396,500 of whom had never engaged with a BMW email before

• Of first-time engagers, a massive widening of demographic (age, gender and location)

• 337% increase in mentions of “Hofmeister Kink” post-campaign

REDISCOVERING THE JOY OF DRIVING – VERBATIMS

• “There’s one that perfectly matches my 528i about 1,200 miles from me. Welp, gotta go and check it out!” ¬– Bahia

• “I love that the website lets me track which locations I’ve visited” – ESB

• “It’s crazy, and silly, but I definitely want to hit up as many of those Hofmeisters as possible LOL!” – tubingchamp