BMW Literally Launches a Car with a 30-Minute Viral Video
Friday, June 20th, 2008 | No Comments »WSJ reported today that BMW (and their ad agency) took credit for a 30-minute mockumentary about a German town building a ramp to literally launch a new 1-Series BMW car to America.
The story was leaked to blogs and traditional press, and has apparently gathered some big attention for the German auto-maker, and for a fraction of the cost of a traditional 30-second TV commercial.
More than the film itself, which is a Guffman-style mockumentary about a independent film director discovering the strange event called Rampenfest, the creators continued to build out the world in which the events transpire: creating Web sites for the film The Ramp, the filmmaker Jeff Schultz, the event planner Franz Brendl, and the fictional Bavarian town of Oberpfaffelbachen. Many characters also have Facebook profiles.
What’s more, a store on cafepress actually sells the T-shirts and other merch featured in the movie. With a big enough viral push, this “commercial” could even turn profitable.
