Product Launch – BMW X3 SAV Challenge
Introduce the BMW X3 Sports Activity Vehicle in the U.S. and attract younger buyers to the brand. Generate pre-orders and handraisers before availability in showrooms.
Strategy
Develop a multi-phase, highly personalized direct mail campaign starting with (1) a boxed “sneak peek” viewer to current BMW owners; (2) a mailer that pops out on both ends to exhibit the X3’s features and benefits and its role in various activities. A reply card requests prospect’s purchase consideration values and lifestyle activities; and (3) a 24-page flip-card mailer, personalized with 40 different inserts according to the responders’ indicated lifestyles/values. Follow-up communications built relationships, test drives and sales.
To introduce the X3’s features/benefits to the BMW dealer network, Ritta created a dynamic launch kit that provided competitive comparisons and psychographics of the varying target audiences, and illustrated the marketing support BMW was providing to drive showroom traffic. Ritta created many of the X3 marketing materials, integrating the message theme throughout product brochures, showroom POS, national Auto Show and event graphics, BMW Magazine, e-mail and an X3 web microsite.
Results
Within months, the X3 became one of BMW’s best-selling models, with over 34,600 sold in its first year. In 2004, BMW broke all records in sales of all models sold in the U.S. – making BMW the top-selling European automobile brand in the U.S. And Ritta has been a strategic marketing partner on every BMW model launch since 1989!
