MINIUSA Loses Its Advertising Agency to VW

Sections: Marketing | MF Feature Sep 6th, 2005 40 Comments

Certainly a bad day for MINI. First Kerri Martin leaves for VW and now MINI’s award winning advertising agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky makes the move to bigger money. This news comes from the Automotive News

Volkswagen is replacing longtime advertising agency Arnold Worldwide with Crispin Porter + Bogusky of Miami. Crispin Porter is known for its work on BMW’s Mini account.

Crispin Porter will take charge of all advertising and marketing for the VW brand account, effective Dec. 5. Crispin Porter resigned the Mini account on Tuesday, effective in 90 days, said Jeff Hicks, CEO and partner of the agency.

Boston-based Arnold has been VW’s ad agency for 10 years, said Ron Lawner, Arnold’s chairman and chief creative officer. He said the agency received a call from Volkswagen of America Executive Vice President Len Hunt, who heads the VW brand, this morning terminating the relationship.

“I was surprised,” Lawner said. “That account meant an awful lot to this agency. It’s very traumatic.” Hunt said it was a difficult call to make after a 10-year partnership. “I stressed how happy we’ve been with them but that we wanted to go in a new direction,” he said. That new direction includes redirecting advertising dollars away from traditional TV and print toward more viral, event-driven and online advertising, Hunt said.

“We’ve begun to realize the world’s changed a little bit,” he said. “Today, it’s not so much about communication with people; it’s about connecting with them.”

A call to BMW of North America LLC was not returned this morning. In a statement to the press, Hunt said VW needs to take “bold steps to turn this business around in the U.S. and Canada” and is reviewing all aspects of the business. VW’s U.S. sales have struggled this year. The brand’s August U.S. sales inched up 1.6 percent compared with August 2004. U.S. sales for the first eight months of the year, however, are down 19.1 percent, compared with the year-ago period. “With the addition of CP&B on our team, we’ll now be equipped to maximize our marketing efforts,” Hunt said.

VW’s director of brand innovation, Kerri Martin, had been Mini’s marketing communication manager until March 15 when VWoA hired her. Hunt said Martin did influence the decision to replace Arnold. He said she worked with Crispin Porter when she was at Mini and believes the agency is good at the grass-roots kind of marketing that VW wants to shift to.

You can read the entire article on the Automotive News website (subscriber only) or wait to see if Autoweek picks it up in a day or two.

[ VW replaces ad agency with Mini's firm ] Automotive News

MF Analysis: BMW has recently began searching for a new advertising agency as well, after dumping their long time partner several months ago. Interestingly BMW decided against including CP & B in their recent search. One wonders how that decision may have effected CP & B’s choice to end their relationship with MINI in favor of VW. MINI after-all only spends around $22 million annually compared to the over $400 million VW dishes out.

Written By: Gabe

John

I think Weiden and Kennedy from the old Nike ads would be a good fit for MINI. I just hope they don’t lose their creativity.
Nathaniel Salzman

This is a pretty huge deal. I’m very interested to see what CP&B does with VW as their branding of MINI has been immaculate (think back to the MF report on MINI global brand recognition). For once, this is an issue that WILL have profound impact on the MINI brand. Will MINI continue in its current direction or will a new agency take MINI down a new path? What a lot of people may not appreciate is CP&B’s role in building MINI culture as we know it – from the look and feel of the dealerships and print materials, to the website and its famous “configurator” to the more subtle messaging that makes up “who MINI is” as a brand. Will this mean an update to the MINI voice or simply a transition in how that voice is shared?

And furthermore, what will be their role at VW? Will VW let them influence their actual brand culture, or simply try to mix and match their viral marketing creativity to proliferate their current messaging?

Very interesting stuff – at least to me. CP&B has totally re-energized the Burger King brand and the TRUTH anti-smoking campaign has been top-tier PSA for years and years. I’m no big fan of VW, but I’m very curious to see what kind of brand culture they try to build around them.
http://motoringfile.com Gabe

I couldn’t have said it better myself Nathan. However one clarification – CP&B isn’t actually responsible for MINIUSA.com or the online configurator.
MINI VANILLI

i am very familiar with working with Arnold. my ad agency does works with Arnold with some client accounts. this is very bad news for them. and this is also bad news for us MINI owners.
Evan

THis is too bad- I hope MINI can find someone with similar approaches and humor. Although VW is in desperate need of an injection of something, especially after the Corrola-esque new Jetta. BMW probably steered away from the same MINI agency b/c of it different idea as to what each brand needs.

I don’t know what a grass roots would do for VW afterall, it’s been abandoning its core customers with each new car….
James

VW has already been copying MINI ads in recent magazines. The latest Toureg ad has the magazine subscription card which has been punched out to look like a Tourage drove through it from one ad to another.
Shep

We all like to think we are independent people making independent purchasing decisions, but the fact is that CP&B has done a truly brilliant job of involving us all in a “culture” that did not exist before. It works because there is, of course, real substance behind the product they are advertising. They really helped to build a superb Mini culture.

The nice thing is that we actually benefit from it–the general sense of fun, a very strong community of Mini owners, and positive reactions from other road users.
Seth L

I’ll second Wieden + Kennedy.

Anything but perfection from the new ad agency is going to be a letdown though.

Quite a coupe for VW.
petsounds

CP&B will have an extremely tough time with VW products, unlike the MINI which practically sold itself. I’m not knocking CP&B’s creativity, their MINI campaigns were superb on average. But VW is really not a desirable brand right now, as their new products are lackluster, downright ugly (Jetta), or have no audience (Phaeton). Their quality rating is abyssmal. And they have pretty much spent up all of VW fans’ goodwill already. It will take an immensively creative and strategic campaign to turn VW sales and mindshare around. But at the end of the day, you can put a pig in a dress, but it’s still a pig. VW itself has to drastically change and return to its roots.

Oh, and I disagree with Nate’s statement that CP&B “re-energized” the Burger King brand. The only thing I hear people say about their campaigns are, “That Burger King character freaks me out.”

Having said all that, it’s a shame that CP&B are leaving MINI. They have a perfect grasp of the brand and their stuff was fun and smart.
Seth L

I love the CP&B Burger King ads, right up to the recent, scary, Chicken Fries.

As for VW, weren’t they in the same position in the early 90′s when Arnold Worldwide took over and made them into a Gen-X darling?

Yes, the New Beetle was new, but look at what they did for the Jetta and Passat. For a while Honda was envious of the Passats trendy demographic.

Of course that recent spat of insulting Test Drive ads were some of the worst I’ve seen.
http://www.jwardell.com/mini/ Josh Wardell

This is sad news IMO. CP&B developed some of the best MINI advertising. To this day I often flip through friends’ sports and general interest magazines for their creative and function mini ads.

I remember years ago when VW always seemed to have the best car commercials, and that has waned, so I understand their desire to get a better agency. But I don’t see why CP&B has to dump MINI to take them.

Those numbers do say a lot: MINI has become a hugely recognizable brand with less than one tenth of the advertising budget of VW’s hardly noticable ads.

And yes, MINI’s excellent online presence is separately handled by Beam, Inc.
http://stlmini.com mike

well, the good news in all this is that CP&B have made MINI quite a catch so there should be some good competition out there to pick them up even if they don’t spend VW money. who knows…. with all the new variants coming out they may be planning to boost their budget.
http://miniblog.guapacha.com Paul

Maybe CP&B had to dump MINI as part of the deal with VW? I could imagine VW not wanting to share the ‘innovation’ with a rival to their Beatle.

It is sad though; the MINI culture they’ve created is unique and I find it hard to see how anyone else might do such a good job.
Aurel

Interesting developments indeed. I do agree however that VW needs some stronger product though before they just jump into some new campaigns.

And from what I recall, they do not have anything new coming down the line.

This is indeed more money and a good challenge to CP&B and they will be the only winners in this scenarion … not sure if VW will benefit for a long time to come from any new campains.

As petsounds said earlier “But at the end of the day, you can put a pig in a dress, but it’s still a pig. VW itself has to drastically change and return to its roots.”
Sad Arthur

I am sad to see them go, but perhaps this is the best time for MINI to make a change. There is no doubt CP&B put the brand on the map and into our collective consciousness, but now the heavy lifting is done. The original MINI has become a niche market success, which BMW hoped would happen, but which no one in Munich knew for sure.

MINI has reached a plateau this year, demonstrated by the fact that there are nothing but cosmetic changes to the 2006 cars, and is looking forward to the next generations of product. Perhaps MINI feels they will need more marketing horsepower to leverage the Estate Wagon, the Lightweight MINI, the 4WD, as well as the new Peugeot/Citroen/BMW powerplant and whatever go-fast goodies the lads at JCW can come up with. (I would not be overly surprised to see a lightweight JCW 4WD 400 HP MINI appear in WRC racing within a few years . . . wouldn’t THAT be cool!)

CP&B did a fantastic job with Gen 1. But the company is expanding and evolving. Who will make us salivate over Gen 2?
Nathaniel Salzman

Oh my bad, didn’t remember that CP&B didn’t do the configurator, though I should have known better – miniusa.com was featured on macromedia.com several months back. Can’t be right all the time!

“petsounds” has hit the issue dead on when it comes to VW. As Luke Sullivan says, “you can’t polish a turd.” Brilliant marketing will only delay the death of a bad product. The MINI is such an indisputably great little car that brand culture or no, it would have sold about the same. I think there’s only so much brand culture you can conjur out of thin air – the bulk of it happens because of the product and the relationship people build with it. Branding and marketing more direct that process than create it.
MINIBling

You can’t polish a Terd!

And that’s all that VW is producing these days. I sold my ’99 Beetle 2.0 (which I bought new and was a total maintenance and breakdown nightmare) for a Loaded ’05 MCS….ZERO comparison to a VW. Hmmm R32 or Loaded MCS for $30K? No Brainer!

There is SO much going on with a MINI (Style, Technology, Safety, Performance, Maintenance Program, and much more) and nothing like this going on with the VW brand. As an example, the R32 (one the coolest offerings in a long time) micro site was completely lame and told you nothing about the car. And this was a very special car warranting some fanfare. But VW doesn’t have any idea what to build or bring to the states anymore. I drove an AWD Golf in Germany in 1989, what a great car, couldn’t wait for the US version, but it took them forever to get the car in the USA in a dated model. Too little, too late. But hey, the new Golf V looks good huh? Not!

VW has no direction or soul. All of their efforts to date are very half-hearted!

Advertising doesn’t make a car great, great cars speak for themselves. Ad Agencies only enhance the message.
JAG

The MINI brand is not going to suffer a bit, as all creative marketing guidelines comes from their central office and local agencies just “tropicalize” the content (not to take some credit from the local agencies, but it’s true), MINI is a global brand and as such its the same in England, USA, Germany, Korea or Mexico, the variations are very slight in local tone.
Vanwall
The brand lives or dies by their own marketing people – the great agencies translate this into succesful ads, so hopefully MINI’s people are clever AND forward-thinking. They have managed to make something from practically nothing, and should always remember that.
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Nathaniel Salzman

Absolutely. MINI’s marketing department has at least the good sense to lead the brand in a good direction so far. If nothing else, they’re out of their own way. It’s amazing how many companies have great brands but someone at the top is too scared to let truly creative things happen with that brand. I agree that the MINI brand is not in danger, I just hope that whoever they bring in to fill the shoes of CP&B will continue to bring them great ideas to approve and work with.
Matt

Maybe Gabe could elaborate on how CP&B deserves credit for MF, as I believe MF has had a far more obvious influence on building the MINI culture than any advertising agency has. I’ve never seen a MINI ad, and was underwhelmed by the miniature brochure I received in the mail after requesting more info from the miniusa site (cute, but frustratingly void of any useful info). I’d say my decision to buy a MINI has been based primarily on word-of-mouth referrals together with sites like this. Can someone enlighten me with exactly why CP&B should be credited or why this is at all a big deal?
dickdavid

Can someone enlighten me with exactly why CP&B should be credited or why this is at all a big deal?

Two words: “Let’s Motor”

I have to say CP&B’s brand positioning for MINI has been nothing short of brilliant. Personally, I bought into the whole MINI lifestyle because of how it was marketed to us.

The car is awesome, but it wasn’t a consideration until seeing some of their billboards and reading that awesome line: “Let’s Motor”.
meanboy

The advertisements were nice but they did not sway me either way. The test drive and the car itself is what influenced me the most.
Greg W

If MINI is like BMW, the marketing plan is done by BMW AG – individual markets hire local agencies to manage their own countries wants and needs. You can go anywhere in the world and see the same message and format – Let’s Motor is used in other countries outside USA. Agencies are usually the choice of the Marketing Manager – and if a new team comes along they may ditch the old agency. As well there is competition – sooner or later an agency runs out of new ideas. Frankly, I don’t think anyone will notice.
stuart

They were good for MINI USA, but ultimately the branding and imagery responsibility sit fairly and squarely in Munich, the agency deserves credit for its creativity and has done a good job, but with a product which is fairly unique in its sector. The car sells itself in a way. So whoever takes over will in some ways have a hard act to follow, but 5 years is a long time to keep creative in the Ad game, time for new blood I say. I can’t see how CP&B will add anything to VW though, the brand image is set in stone, it’ll take more than clever ads to change that.
dickdavid

The advertisements were nice but they did not sway me either way. The test drive and the car itself is what influenced me the most.

Brand advertising isn’t for selling a product. It’s for creating awareness. I think they’ve done an awesome job of doing so. The car sells itself.

Now that everybody and their brother is jumping on the “smaller” car market, MINI will have to dial things up to stay competive.

I can’t see how CP&B will add anything to VW though, the brand image is set in stone, it’ll take more than clever ads to change that.

That’s what they do best. CP&B has cornered the market with alternative, guerrilla advertising. Given the state of our TIVO-fast-forward, paperless, internt nation, traditional advertising is becoming extinct.

Agencies are having to rethink better ways to communicate to today’s consumers. Some of this is driven by low media budgets and having to get more bang for the buck.

CP&B does this well. Just look at the “truth” campaign as well as the “Burger King” stuff.
KevinR

I guess I’m totally different. I followed the development of the MINI long before any advertising agency was brought into the mix. Marketing campaigns never factor into my buying decision. My choice to buy the car is simply based on test drives and reliability reports.

Those reliability reports are why I stayed far away from the 2002 MINI Cooper S. Luckily, my 2004 MCS has proven to be better, but not perfect, compared to the reports from the ’02s.

I’ve had nothing but good service out of the VWs I’ve owned; not perfect either, but no reliability or maintenance nightmares there.

The new lineup of VWs doesn’t do much for me, but ’07 MINIs don’t do much for me either. Luckily, I should have a lot more time in my ’04 MCS.
dgszweda

Does the advertising affect the Mini, like we think it does? The comments on this site are all skewed. Most people on this site and others such as NAM and Mini2, have bought into the whole lifestyle issue. But the reality is that most people who purchase the car are not necessarily into a lifestyle generated from the Mini. Most don’t go to club meets, and most are not registered on any boards. While I like the ads, they didn’t influence my purchasing of the car. The adds are fluffy, don’t have a lot of depth to them and are lifestyle driven. I still think they are great, just not a deciding reason for me to purchase the car. The interest of the car initially was in it’s looks and secondly on how it drove.

So I think Mini will survive. The one thing I really did like was the fact that Mini had a consistent approach to everything, whether it was the window sticker or the billboard outside, it all had a Mini look (or excellent branding).
http://www.minisofmiami.com Frank

Excellent commentary from autoextremist.com:

http://autoextremist.com/page6.shtml#table

“The Volkswagen advertising account was pulled from Havas advertising agency Arnold Worldwide in favor of Crispin Porter + Bogusky, VW announced yesterday. Crispin Porter + Bogusky is the Miami-based ad agency best known for its work for Burger King and MINI. VW, desperate for something, anything, to help turn things around in the U.S., is hoping that the obligatory “hot” ad shop can jump-start its flagging fortunes, while it continues to wait for its new products to make an impact. VW had already dismissed Havas’ media buying company MPG last January, but the company did not conduct a traditional ad agency review before handing C P + B its account. It’s an interesting move, but it won’t make up for the fact that VW’s new products have been painfully slow in getting to the U.S. market. And VW continues to fight the perception out in the market that its quality numbers still aren’t there yet. VW is a damaged brand in the U.S., and there’s just no getting around that fact. And Wolfgang Bernhard or no, we just don’t see them making the progress they need to be making if they intend on turning things around.”

“Crispin Porter + Bogusky. From the “Be Careful What You Wish For” File. It’s the oldest story in advertising. Small ad shop does great work, becoming the agency of the moment. It then attracts new clients, makes more money, then gets invited to pitch more and more business. Somewhere along the way, the agency loses its focus and forgets what got them there in the first place and goes after the “big score” – the huge advertising account that they just know will put them over the top. So, they position themselves to go after new business and then end up jettisoning the original client they made their mark with in favor of a much bigger piece of the action. After being awarded the VW account, Crispin Porter + Bogusky informed Mini that they would be resigning the Mini account in 90 days. According to a report in Automotive News yesterday, VW’s “director of brand innovation,” Kerri Martin, who had been recently Mini’s marketing communication manager until March 15, influenced the decision, VW said. Well, duh. Crispin Porter + Bogusky will find out the hard way that VW is an entirely different animal from Mini in terms of size, market positioning, the scope of its dealer network and the level of pressure required to perform. Be careful what you wish for, indeed. Good luck, C P + B – you’ll need it.”

Peter DeLorenzo hit the nail on the head!
ChrisW

CP&B will have an extremely tough time with VW products

Heck, VW has an extremely tough time with VW products. Are they a luxury car company? A driver enthusiast company? A young hipster company? They don’t seem to know any more, and neither do we.

I used to be a big VW fan (sold my ’00 Passat and Miata for my MINI cabrio) but I’ve lost hope in the company. VWs continue to get bigger, softer, uglier (IMO), and more expensive.

While VW moves upscale and alienates its entire customer base, Mazda (and MINI, of course) has slid in to fill the “fun & exciting yet affordable” niche, a niche VW once had a firm hold on. They should have stuck to their winning formula, canned the disastrous Phaeton and Passat W8, and made the Touareg a cheaper, sportier vehicle to compete at a lower price point. They were on a tear, the future was looking bright, and they suddenly burned it all down. Why???

I live in a Jetta-heavy area, and I’ve so far seen one new Jetta on the road. One. Tons of the older model. I wish they had gone through with the new Microbus. And what’s the hold up on the new GTi here in the States???

Sorry for the rant, but VW’s vertical death plunge really bothers me.

Attention VW: READ ME.
http://www.nemini.org GMINI

This morning over breakfast i was skimming the New Yorker (*where I first found the MINI) and saw a subscription card with a whole singed through the address entry. I actually felt it to see if it was burned. There was the rear end of a red vehicle i thought to be a MINI inside the whole on the ad beneath. The two page spread was a country panorama with a dirt roiad. Below the red VW Toureg was the vehicle information reversed out. MINI trickery, MINI Shape, VW AD. Yuck. Here is a magazine I always looked forward to finding MINI ads…
http://www.minisofmiami.com Frank

ChrisW, excellent post. It summarizes quite accurately the current state of affairs at VW. Blame the late Dr. Piech for his madness to try to convert the “everday” VW brand into some sort of exotic/luxury product conundrum that is not. Piech’s moves cannibalized and nearly killed Audi’s presence in Europe and the US. He was a brilliant engineer but a mad man at the end of the day. VW is clearly paying for all the “broken dishes” that Dr. Piech destroyed during his last binge.
Nathan

Wow, you guys make it sound like VW is about to go under. I hope not because while my wife and I enjoy our MINI very much. Given the current gas prices we were thinking of also buying VW Jetta diesel. They seem to be the only car company in the U.S. offering a TDI sedan.
Bart

Maybe they can get that creepy Burger King guy to scare a few people into buying… :p
Derek

no prob.

advertising does not a better car make…
http://users.adelphia.net/~rocketboy/index.html Rocketboy

I wonder if this is why they had to lay off so many workers?
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