MINI, BSSP, and Me

Many a marketing guru has declared that knowing who your customers aren’t is as important as knowing who they are. With this in mind it occurred to me that with a recent marketing effort, MINI/BMW and Butler, Shine, Stern and Partners have teamed up to pretty much ensure I never become a MINI/BMW customer.

This article in the The New York Times reports on how Sausalito-based BSSP created an advertising campaign for Mini USA to woo existing customers and assumably make those who don’t already own a MINI a little jealous of the occasional potential for three seconds of commuter fame:

The [bill]boards, which usually carry typical advertising, are programmed to identify approaching Mini drivers through a coded signal from a radio chip embedded in their key fob. The messages are personal, based on questionnaires that owners filled out: “Mary, moving at the speed of justice,” if Mary is a lawyer, or “Mike, the special of the day is speed,” if Mike is a chef.

So it’s unlikely anyone involved will care, but I find the campaign ludicrous and a good reason to never consider buying a MINI. Obviously BSSP is a highly-paid, professional agency so no doubt their research indicating that people like myself will find it ludicrous must be far outweighed by the measurable benefit it’s going to deliver to current and potential MINI owners. I suppose the fact that I will never attend a meetup for people who own the same car is also a good indication I’m just not who they’re after.

As for BSSP, although I do laugh at the William Shatner ads, I’m surprised how their websites seem to violate the #1 rule of 10 things you should know before submitting your site to Google.