When I first looked at reviewing this campaign I thought why would BMW be pushing their product through QQ? I mean sure, the numbers are just astronomical but how many QQ users can really afford to buy a BMW?

I’m certain they did their research and they were pushing the most affordable product across the BMW line. The volume of QQ members was at least an attempt to appeal to a wider audience. Though it seemed as if the young BMW hopefuls were left at the aisle after being led down the garden path….

The story starts early in May, 2008. BMW and QQ were meeting for the first time at what became more than a simple flirt. An online contest was created, based on Qzone for BMW’s new vehicle line “1”. The campaign featured elements of the 2008 Olympic Games, which was a driver for the overall theme being “1”. Participants were encouraged to share pictures from their life that represented the number 1 – it could be an image of you winning, something unique, or simply an element in your life that represents ‘whole’ or ‘complete’.

The images were then of course voted on by other participants to win some fantastic prizes, including the 1 series BMW. See here: http://bmw1.qzone.qq.com/

A key part of the communication process was BMW’s launch of the 1 series at the Beijing Automotive show – users were encouraged to follow links to information about the Auto show. The show was obviously important on the BMW calendar, so the promotion was a good way to ‘drive’ interest about the launch.

THE RULES:

Any QQ member can join the campaign – though voting was limited to 10 vote’s maximum per member. This was smart as it encouraged the participants to share with friends to increase the votes.

Voting was only valid through the period 7^th March – 10^th April 2008. Overall winners were awarded prizes based on the number of votes and also BMW judges opinion comments.

There were some great prizes; in fact the TOP 90 vote getters were awarded prizes ranging form the actual BMW Series 1 model car to tickets to the Auto Show in Beijing for the launch. There was also a participation prize supporting the active users uploading images daily with a limited edition BMW brand Qzone decoration. I assume it looked great, unfortunately I couldn’t find a sample.

THE NUMBERS

Now the numbers look pretty impressive. Campaign views capped at 2,925,644 times, engaging with over 27,000 participants. The total number of votes was 1,104,241.

See a shot of the campaign here http://706290095.qzone.qq.com/act/1

The image represents a shot of the Qzone home page with BMW 1 entrants. The best number of votes for an entrant was a whopping 23,890 votes! That’s a lot of individual votes,

I sited just one BBS post promoting the “discover the 1 in your life” campaign.

See here: http://bbs.auto.qq.com/b-1001024083/30.htm

COMMENT SECTION – BIG NUMBER

There is a comment section attached with this campaign which drew 52,680 comments. I can safely assume the comments were related to the campaign. Either way it’s a really big number simply for comments.

See comments http://706290095.qzone.qq.com/act/1

NAVIGATION

The campaign was heavily promoted through Qzone and also throughout QQ brand pages. There was a QQ tips section to promote and encourage participants.

Banner advertisements played a key role also. Expensive but Im sure all part of the package with QQ.

TARGET MARKET – IMPRESSIVE

At first I was very skeptical about this campaign hitting a mature demographic more likely to buy a 1 Series BMW. It was sited that among all the participants (uploading and voting), 32.17% were aged between 23-45. Which fits right in the key demographic for BMW 1 Series. The bulk of the participants were from developed cities with a thriving economy. Many coastal city participants reported to have entered the campaign which was a positive sign.

*Slide shown here form agency appointed

INTERACTIVE

The interactive elements to this campaign were somewhat questionable. It was encouraged but seemed to lack depth if a consumer sought more information (for instance an online sales person would have been great)

The four key interactive elements were:

1. Life work uploading of images
2. Online research
3. Comments section
4. The voting (voters could spread and promote their entries by forwarding on)

Fairly basic stuff but again it’s a mature audience BMW are looking to communicate with reflecting on the BMW brand would represent these elements. Nothing gimmicky or tacky.

MORE STATISTICS:

The BMW Qzone traffic has since had over 3,163,805 unique visitors. Total views to date are now at 13,969,172. Some big numbers for this campaign

The notice board has 1497 notes with almost all of them are on BMW. BMW themselves also created 11 different notes for discussion. Astoundingly each had approximately 20,000 views and hundreds of replies, the best are at 44,837 views. Combined the official notes created by BMW attracted 196,728 views and 6,772 replies.

ALBUM

There are 6 BMW albums available to view on the Qzone portal. Many having hundreds of comments after the images. When reading them it seemed as if the responses to these comments (enquires) were not managed properly and I believe could have been managed better – potentially to drive more to the point of sale.

http://user.qzone.qq.com/706290095/photo/ceb3ca67-7b45-4bd7-b08a-bd8956865266

OTHER CAMPAIGNS:

There is another Qzone campaign centered around the BMW Series 1. Its purpose was to push traffic for test drives. Apologies but we cannot report the success relating to that. It did seem successful with approximately 357,825 views with 45,930 participants. There were 1,833 comments for this campaign.

http://706290095.qzone.qq.com/act/2

I would like to ask more questions to the agency that serviced this campaign in relation to follow up after the program. I will be sure to report if we find this information.

THOUGHTS

Originally I was skeptical about the channel BMW used to promote the 1 Series but after having reviewed the campaign overall I would say it’s a great job. Who was I to assume where the wealthy go online – there was a few key factors that added to the success of this campaign

I realized it didn’t matter so much for the proportion of Q users who could afford a BMW but:

1. One doesn’t need to be well educated or the elite of Chinese society to be rich, which is a typical phenomenon in China recently.
2. Whilst the bulk of QQ’s users are not the ‘right’ target consumers; just having such a huge member base created enough influence to warrant the campaign. Just as many msn users also have QQ IDs.
3. BMW Series 1 is the most affordable model with BMW. Price range 285,000 to 450,000.

The numbers would represent a considerable engagement level to support the launch for BMW. The campaign itself would be deemed a success. But sit seems that a campaign was all it was. There is now little follow up from BMW and the site itself is now becoming obsolete, so one must ask the question – why spend so much time on building this house, having all your friends there and then asking them to leave? I’m certain BMW would have taken away an incredible amount of knowledge but how is that being utilized now? It definitely identified a huge potential customer base.

It seems it was more just a campaign than a dedicated investment into social media. Where are all these people who supported this campaign going now?

The integration across other social networks did not exist nor was there more promotional BBS used. Given the maturity of the market BMW would wanting to attract this may be why they did not invest resources into this – but again the sheer volume populating the other SNS sites would seriously warrant an investment.

Interaction was low but I suggest it satisfied the general user’s engagement. Better responsiveness and on time sales people to register test drives and screen potential buyers could have been an opportunity to exploit. Simply having an email address for follow up would not satisfy a credible level of conversions.

Still you would say it was a resounding success. For such a high priced ticket item to generate such numbers really does show the market craves for more interaction from the premium desired brands – using channels like QQ and other SNS sites are a great way for a brand to connect to a really large section of the community. Who would have known there were so many BMW lovers out there?