BMW got it right way back when.

Way back in 2001, BMW found that most of their male buyers who earned over $75,000 annually were watching high-speed Internet. They also found that, prior to most of them buying a BMW, they did some sort of research online.

BMW recruited advertising heavyweight, Fallon Worldwide, to put something big together. In Fallon fashion, they did just that and eventually put together a knock-out campaign of (8) eight short mini-movies (averaging around 7-10 minutes per movie) in a series dubbed, "The Hire," that was one of the most successful viral advertising campaigns put in place.

Here's why:

• The campaigns were exciting. They all centered around a central character, Clive Owen, who would play the part of the driver in all (8) eight episodes who was constantly ensuring that good-was-good and did it all in the drivers seat of a BMW;
• The campaigns were relevant. Each movie showed the car doing what car owners who drop big investment money on cars want them to do;
  
• They allowed online viewers to get involved more and, in return, the online viewers passed the branded-content around the online community to friends and family for BMW.

Fallon picked David Fincher (Fight Club, Se7en) to produce one of the eight films but due to some sort of conflict it never got done so he oversaw production of the entire first season of films.

The series won awards at the Cannes International Advertising Festival and (in 2003) was inducted in to the Museum of Modern Art.

I highly recommend taking time to watch all of them if you never have. Here's the film library with a few highlights. It's the most fun you'll ever have learning about convergence in the media industry and how a big, risky, innovative project might look:

• Ambush, directed by John Frankenheimer, and features the BMW 7 Series;
• Choosen, directed by Ang Lee (and featuring his son), features the BMW 5 Series;
• The Follow, with Forest Whitaker and Mickey Rourke, features BMW 3 Series and Z3 roadster;
• Star, with Madonna starring and directed by hubbie, Guy Richie, features the BMW M5
• Powder Keg, features the BMW X5

Season 2 (all second season features the BMW Z4)

• Hostage, directed by John Woo;
• Ticker, featuring Don Cheatle and Ray Liotta, directed by Joe Carnahan;
• Beat The Devil (my personal favorite out of all of them) features James Brown, Gary Oldman, Danny Trejo, and Marilyn Manson, directed by Tony Scott.

BMW saw their 2001 sales numbers jump 12% and the movies were viewed over 11 million times in (4) four months. They had over 2 million people register at BMW Films and those people started the viral success by sending the videos to friends & family.

The campaign was so innovate and successful that they actually received movie reviews from Time Magazine and The New York Times.

According to a BMW Films press release, "THE HIRE - THE ACCLAIMED FILM SERIES BY BMW - WILL END A FOUR AND A HALF YEAR INTERNET RUN OCTOBER 21st."

And so they did. BMW ended up doing another small series for their mini and some comic books as well for a few of their cars but the glory was all masterfully placed in the hands of that initial series because everything went right. They utilized a big budget, took advantage of an opportunity by making a move when the time was right, and stayed clear and concise with what they wanted to do. No shortcuts. By the time it was all said-and-done over four years later, BMW Films had received over 100 million film views (Here's what that looks like with all the zero's: 100,000,000.)

It was a great example of how, by using convergence in the media industry, big companies could make major waves.

When companies take advantage of all the ways that information can be passed and they stay focused on the goal and target a hand, there are many more gains than pure sales to be had. Product positioning and getting that visceral connection with your target audience can be a great way to get your product passed around online for you and a way for them to feel connected to your brand.

In my next post, I'll dive in to some case studies since this 2001 endeavor by BMW and find out what car companies are doing to brand their product using "unconventional" avenues of advertising.