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MINI USA Announces RFP For Advertising in the USA

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MINI USA today announced it will hold an agency review for the majority of the MINI brand creative work in America due to BMW Group policy requirements. The announcement comes as MINI USA achieved its best sales year ever, and is in the midst of growing the brand’s vehicle lineup and dealer network.

There are several areas of focus for agency support in the RFP – national brand creative, regional and dealer creative, media planning and buying for both national and co-op advertising.

Interactive is currently supported by Beam Interactive in Boston, MA and is not included in the RFP. Sanders Wingo in Austin, Texas was appointed in September 2011 to support all the diversity marketing activities for MINI USA, and that area of the marketing business is not included in the RFP.

The national, regional and dealer creative and media advertising efforts have been handled by Butler, Shine, Stern and Partners (BSSP) from Sausalito, California since late 2005.

“MINI USA has been very satisfied with BSSP’s services. They have helped support MINI’s growth over the years with ground-breaking, never-been-done before creative. We are simply adhering to BMW Group corporate purchasing procedures by going to RFP,” said Tom Salkowsky, Manager MINI USA Marketing. “BSSP has made valuable contributions to our business and will participate in this review.”

“We understand that this is a procurement-driven requirement,” said John Butler, Executive Creative Director at BSSP. “Generally, we believe incumbents shouldn’t participate in an agency review. However, with our strong dealer and client relationships, an Effie for MINI each year that we’ve had the business, and the strength of the work, we are confident that we will prevail.”

The search will be conducted by Hasan Ramusevic with Hasan + Co. in Raleigh, North Carolina. Hasan + Co. conducted the agency search for MINI USA in 2005 as well. Interested agencies should contact Hasan at: 919-713-0700, www.hasanandco.com.

[Source: BMW Group North America, Woodcliff Lake, NJ – January 13, 2012]

BMW picks new marketing agencies

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Yeah, the original working title they wanted to use was “BMW North America announces agency selections for multicultural and diversity marketing.”

That of itself smells like a boat load of marketing fluff doesn’t it? We thought so too. Anyway, kidding over the verbiage aside, yesterday, in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, BMW announced Sanders\Wingo Advertising in Austin, TX has been appointed to support all the diversity marketing activities for MINI USA.

Jim McDowell, VP of MINI USA (remember, our gal interviewed him a short time ago?) said, “MINI’s customer base is becoming increasingly diverse as our vehicle lineup expands, and Sanders/Wingo Advertising clearly understands the multicultural audiences that are key for us. As we continue to grow the brand, Sanders/Wingo’s impressive capabilities in the areas of strategic planning and market research within multicultural segments will be crucial for increasing awareness of MINI’s distinctive design, go-kart handling and extremely high level of customization.”

We’re sure the marketing folks gave him a few pointers on what to say, because really, as cool as marketing people are, nobody really talks that way in normal conversation, and we should know.. we spout a lot of marketing fluff ourselves for our podcasts. Nonetheless, that’s a very cool and MINI spirit sort of thing to do, concentrate some efforts towards multicultural diversity, which, as you know, Minis have been all over that since the first car rolled off the production line in 1959.

Yay, multiculturalism and diversity! We look forward to seeing some of the new stuff coming from this agency and will report more whenever we get juicy tidbits (or more marketing fluff) to share with all our miniologists — that means you ;)