“We Are M” was a non-traditional campaign aimed at celebrating fans of the BMW M spirit during its 50th anniversary. The campaign focuses on a common phenomena – people putting unofficial BMW M stickers, logos and grill covers on their cars. In “We Are M”, we thank these fans and even give them access to real BMW M badges. The goal of the campaign was to show BMW’s inclusive community spirit and further grow brand love, both from owners and fans.

BMW in China has a massive community who love to share and engage with the brand. Wechat is filled with BMW community groups and BMW’s Tiktok channel has 10x more followers than Mercedes’. BMW is the only luxury car brand in China with this fan base, which has helped it stay #1. Part of why BMW has so many fans is because of its inclusive community approach. Whether you are an owner or not, if you love BMW, you are invited to come play. This felt natural for BMW, a category leader whose brand promise is “Joy”.

2022 was the 50th anniversary of BMW M, BMW’s iconic high-performance subdivision. The global campaign was “We Are M”, an exclusive celebration for owners and insiders. But given BMW China’s inclusive, community-focused approach, we wanted to open the celebration to include all BMW M lovers.

The BMW M badge has a distinctive logo, color pattern and three stripe motif. This badge is beloved because it symbolizes performance, power, and the Ultimate Driving Machine. But on the streets, it’s easy to find Buicks, Skodas, Volvos, and Audis with unofficial M badges on their cars. While some may say this is an offense to the brand, we see this as love. So we wanted to find a way to welcome these BMW M fans into our family.

For this campaign, we needed to completely break our usual way of talking about BMW M. Traditionally, we target purchase intenders who want to know about the car’s performance. So, we show the car’s speed, maneuverability, and racing thrill. But the “We Are M” campaign had a completely different purpose. We wanted to acknowledge and thank everyone who loves the M spirit. No screeching tires, no hairpin curves – what we wanted to tell was a love story. And our target has a different need. They love BMW M and want a way to show off their passion. So, we found a way for them to express their love openly and authentically.

First, we made a video welcoming BMW M lovers. It showed real videos and photos of cars with unofficial badges coupled with a love song to emphasize that this is an embrace, not an accusation. Since this was a campaign for the community, we let the community release it. The video was given exclusively to BMW’s passionate fans to share. “We Are M” didn’t appear on any official channels – it was a gift owned and shared by the community. BMW M fans reposted the video on all of China’s major social media platforms, including Tiktok, Weibo, Wechat, RED and Bilibili. After the video, we released a website where fans could decorate their car with official BMW M badges. There were even rare heritage. Fans could then download and share their “Ultimate Driving Machine” Audis, Buicks and Volvos.

The campaign was only released by the community. The video did not appear on any official channels nor was there any media spend. Nonetheless, it achieved:

- 33.8M impressions

- 6.5M video views

- 40k engagement

More importantly, we got a very passionate response from the community. Fans resonated with the video’s inclusive message saying, “Everyone is a BMW M fan in their hearts” and “Happy to get love from my dream car”. Some commented on BMW’s bravery, saying "This boldness is what makes BMW M so legendary". Finally, many showed their undying love, saying "Proud to be an M owner", "Another emotional experience with BMW M" and "M power forever!". With the website, fans’ imaginations went wild. Some printed the M designs and stuck to their real cars! And fans even went beyond the campaign, customizing BMW M cars in video games and using AI to re-imagine M cars.

Car racing culture is just developing in China so Chinese consumers didn’t witness the golden age when the premium car brands won titles on the race track. Even so, they love to use signature designs like the BMW M tricolors to decorate their vehicles. It is driven by their desire to be closer to the performance dream cars that they have seen on the street and in ads.