Harvard Business Review Case Analysis

Executive Summary BMW’s marketing efforts have gone through trial and error to create and sustain the brand position and image that it has today. As a global seller of high end luxury cars, BMW is in a competitive industry where strategic marketing activities are a key aspect in setting a company apart in an industry. For this particular case, BMW’s Jim McDowell sits in front of a very important decision on what his next step will be in following their “The Hire” short film series marketing campaign. In making this decision, many factors have to be taken into consideration. One is whether a traditional or nontraditional approach is needed. Another is making sure that the decision builds or at least compliments the BMW brand positioning; and also the aspect of competitor reaction and tactics must be taken into consideration so that BMW can take advantage of any open marketing tactic opportunities or learn from the mistakes of their competitors. Taking these factors into consideration, McDowell presents four different options to think through and come to a decision as to what would be best for the BMW Company. These four options were: 1) to “milk” the existing films and try to insert them into different media vehicles to reach a broader audience 2) film additional short films based on Clive Owen (main character of the series) because loved the films and spoke out for more 3) develop a full feature-length movie based on the series to show in theatres all around North America; give people a full beginning to end story 4) do nothing and focus their time and resources on coming up with the next big successful marketing campaign.
After analyzing the case and taking all these decision factors into consideration, my personal recommendation would be to “milk the existing five films by making them available to a wider audience” and also “do nothing i.e. simply move on to the next thing”.

Problem Statement
What specific traditional or nontraditional marketing