Adrants points out a new BMW viral site promoting their BMW Performance Driving School. Brandweek gives a little more detail on the total campaign. I like it, but like another person said, I wish they would've given me something more - something I could actually do/play/participate in other than scrolling over the people on the main page and then watching videos on the pay-off page.
Essentially, this is an interactive commercial followed up by an online DVD. A good step, but it falls short of what it could've been. Without thinking too hard about it, the easy next step would've been to let me virtually race the BMW of my choice around the track once or twice. Maybe even send an email out to my friends with my time and challenge them to beat it. Make it difficult to get a good time and pay it off with a line or two about how the school could improve my performance.
Another good option would've been to let people sign-up through the site to have a local dealer call or email them to schedule a test drive for the BMW of their choice. Seems like there would be a lot of people who might be interested in BMW from this and could be in the market for one, but for one reason or another, unable or unwilling to go to this school. Getting them to a local dealer for a test drive is a lot more feasible and by getting the person to sign up for one right after they're inspired from the site should increase the numbers of people doing it vs. leaving it up to them to go do on their own in the near future.
Then again, maybe GSD&M tried for something like this and all they could get through was this part. Who knows. It's easy to pick something apart after the fact without knowing anything about what all went into the process of creating it.
Overall, I like the approach of focusing on the driver and their passion for driving. Focusing on things BMW does to make driving a better experience for them. And, this shows off the performance of BMW without all the usual stuff you get from car manufacturers about horsepower, stopping power, acceleration, handling, etc. Which is also what I liked about The Hire series.
As a side note, watching the instructors videos is a bit entertaining. Seeing them push the cars to their limits while talking like they're on a Sunday cruise is kind of funny.
