BMW Group Australiahas reappointed incumbent creative agency, Ogilvy, to its marketing and advertising account.  Other incumbent agencies through the world were not so successful. BMW been involved in pitch processes in every corner of the world this year.

Ogilvy was originally appointed to the business more than 20 years ago. The closed four-way pitch began in September this year for both the BMW and MINI brands. The scope of work includes ATL, BTL, Digital and POS for both the BMW and MINI brands and their dealer network.

Stuart Jaffray, general manager of marketing at BMW, was impressed by all four proposals: “We respect and appreciate the efforts that were put in by the four pitching agencies, and it was a tough decision for us to make.  Ultimately we have chosen the agency that provided the most comprehensive and innovative response to our briefs. We want to be challenged by our agency and, with the benefit of their recent acquisition of Bullseye, Ogilvy were able to present thinking that genuinely challenged us – thinking that we believe will push the BMW brand forwards in the Australian market.”

Kai Bruesewitz, general manager for MINI Australia added, “It was a difficult decision process because of the excellent quality of the responses. In the end, Ogilvy’s strategic approach to bring MINI to the next level and position it in the market as the unrivalled choice when it comes to Premium small cars has convinced us unanimously.”

BMW of North America’s  Hello Future TVC was created by agency, Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal+ Partners (kbs+), in February this year.

BMW maintained a sense of humour throught a busy year. On April Fools Day, it created an ad that claimed it had added a Force Injection Booster that works by “extracting kinetic energy from the car’s engine and converting it into positive g-forces”. The effect was supposedly that drivers can experience the thrill of high speed driving even at modest speeds of just 20mph.

BMW’s other pitches this year include:

BMW India kicked off BMW’s year of pitches with a creative pitch in January. The company issued an RFI to which several creative agencies, large and mid-sized, responded. Around five to six agencies were then selected for what team BMW India called a ‘chemistry round’, in which basics such as credentials and category knowledge, as well as intangible aspects such as comfort level at the interpersonal level, were evaluated.

Delhi creative agency, Liquid Campaign India, was the agency at the time. While most of the brand’s communication for the Indian market was adapted from overseas, the launch campaign for the BMW 3 Series, for example, was especially crafted by Liquid Campaign India, for Indian audiences, keeping local sensibilities in mind. On October 1, 2013, Liquid Campaign India officially became Serviceplan India, and part of a German company too. BMW India appointed Vizeum India as its media agency in August.

BMW Indonesia appointed Bates CHI & Partners Indonesia as its new strategic creative agency in July. Helena Abidin, marketing director at BMW Indonesia said Bates was chosen to build the BMW brand with new initiatives that are based on strong local insight and innovative ideas and look at BMW’s communication strategy in an integrated manner to create new ways of engaging with both existing and future BMW customers.

BMW’s motorcycle arm, Motorrad, pitched its global digital account in August, with incumbent, Plan.Net, involved. VCCP Berlin had just won the pitch for BMW Motorrad’s global creative account.

In June, BMW UK appointed FCB Inferno as its integrated marketing agency. This marked the end of a 35 year relationship with WCRS, the main advertising arm of The Engine Group. FCB also beat BMB, SapientNitro and Soul. Digital agency, Dare, had worked with WCRS on BMW UK’s digital campaigns account since 2008, so lost part of its BMW UK functions.

FCB Inferno released its first work for BMW on December 12: