MINI4Auction.com

Usually I think the MINI ad campaigns are brilliant, but this whole Counterfeit MINI campaign just doesn’t do it for me. I think it’s a big misstep. How does this campaign advance the brand? The car speaks for itself — there’s no need to oversell the MINI Cooper’s uniqueness.

I was lucky enough to be a minor player in the development of “The Beast”, the fiendishly elaborate web-based mystery game from a few years back, and I love these alternate reality websites, when done right. MINI is certainly not going to be as multi-leveled or as richly devious, but they’ve got the right idea, and they’ve got their story and they’re stickin’ to it. I love the plug-ugly pseudo-MINIs! This isn’t quite brilliant, but it’s very well done.

        BCNU,
      Rob in Dago

Anyone who’s ever studied branding would know that a campaign like this reinforces the iconic appearance of the car itself. The MINI brand isn’t the name, it’s the basic appearance of the car. The campaign is two-fold, first it says, in a cheeky way that’s in step with everything else they’ve done that MINI is so desirable that people would go to desparate lengths to at least seem like they’re a part of it. And secondly, it’s using the trademark features in a clever way to illustrate how nothing is the same as the real thing.

Of course the genius of it is that it does all of that without being overt about it. With the success of the MINI other car makers will release their ripoff versions to try to cyphon away the market. What better way to convey that nothing compares to the one-and-only than this clever campaign?

I signed up to be notified of “new auctions” and got an email from the CCC saying they intercepted a transmission from mini4auctions.com:

From: Notifications@counterfeitmini.org Subject: Some bad news about MINI4Auction.com Recently you visited MINI4auction.com and requested to be notified of any upcoming auctions. Unfortunately, we at the Counter Counterfeit Commission have some bad news for you. The auction on MINI4auction.com are almost entirely made up of counterfeit MINI Coopers. This may be hard to believe based on the photos, but it’s true. They’re fakes. MINI4auction was trying to send you an email to notify you of an upcoming auction. Luckily, our Tech Ops department was able to intercept it in time. We don’t even want to think about what might have happened otherwise. Rest assured, you’re safe now. To learn more about motoring fraud and to protect yourself from counterfeit MINI Coopers, visit counterfeitmini.org Stay genuine. Sincerely, Matt Bonin Director Counter Counterfeit Commission

I figured you meant to do that. Looks great to me!

The primary goal of a campaign like this isn’t to sell more cars, it’s to reinforce the strength of the brand (which in turn sells more cars in the long run).

When the car launched, they had to show the car often to establish the brand. Now, in a non-product oriented campaign like this one, the viewer takes what they already know about MINI and come to their own conclusion–multiple times on each website–about the many reasons why MINI is special and unique.

It creates a much longer lasting impression for someone to reach that point through their own thinking then it does if it is something they’re simply told.

None of those sites come out and say it’s obsurd that someone could mistake a MINI for those cars. Instead they play it straight so that the viewer decides that the MINI is so special and different that it’s silly to compare it. The intended audience is familiar with MINI but probably never put much further thought into the brand. They may have never taken the time to think about how unique the brand is, and this campaign forces them to do that.

A few years into establishing the brand, I think it’s a smart and logical progression.

It’s not for everyone, but I doubt it would ever be the primary campaign anyway. It’s targeted at a very specific audience and I think it does well addressing that audience.

Looks like yet another counterfit has been spotted…