The flash-based site we all know and love MINIUSA.com, is currently being featured on Macromedia.com for a case study. Here’s an excerpt:
The Challenge:
MINI USA faced a three-fold challenge. They needed to create a new automotive segment (MINI is the smallest car on the American road), launch a new brand, and introduce two models simultaneously. The considerations were: how to leverage the rich heritage of MINI; how to express the BMW Group’s state-of-the art engineering; how to differentiate MINI’s motoring fun and exhilaration; and how to promote the brand’s unique selling proposition of customization and personalization.
The Solution:
Partnering with BEAM Interactive and using Macromedia Flash, MINI USA brought the brand to life online. They created a highly interactive internet application that resonates with the self-expressive nature of MINI prospects. The site provides a seamless user experience with the dealer network and dealer sites, providing a sustainable stream of highly qualified leads, while at the same time remaining consistent with other off-line branding efforts.
The heart of the site is the configurator, which allows people to customize their own personal MINI through a simple, non-linear, five-step process that includes the ability to add after-market accessories such as custom graphics and wheels. The navigation assures that absolutely everything is viewable on one page at all times. Users can see the exact car that they are customizing and can better understand the price implications of their configuration choices at each step of the process. Its rules-based architecture assures that the users can actually purchase the vehicle that they configured, taking into consideration more than a million design possibilities. MINI easily maintains the rules, as vehicle specifications change from year to year. When users have finished configuring a car, they can then name it, save it, calculate payments for it, and send their configuration to a MINI dealer where it can be purchased. They can also download and print a fully customized, color brochure of their own creation.
You can read more at the follwing link:
[ Macromedia Case Study: MINIUSA ]
Hats off to all those at Beam Interactive and the flash designers and developers (and creative director!) who have made MINIUSA possible. It’s only through a ton of great work by these folks that we get to play with what wheels we like best on our $38,000 dream MINI Cooper JCW S 🙂
[ MINIUSA ]
<p>$38,000? I wish! Loading up the MCS to the maximum goes far higher than that (after you consider dealer installation costs too).</p>
<p>I agree though, the configurator is a new landmark in automotive marketing. Kudos to MINIUSA for breaking new ground.</p>
<p>European MINI websites are great, but when compared with this one, you see that they could be quite better. This one’s really amazing. :)</p>
<p>Couldn’t agree more, Cuca. MINI UK’s configurator is pants when compared to it’s USA counterpart.</p>
<p>Don’t forget that MINI’s site is now several years old. It still blows most out of the water–but they were the first to do a lot of this stuff. It is absolutely the reason for my familiarity with the brand. Well before I was into the car, I would go to the site to play around and find easter eggs. BEAM has done an amazing job.</p>
<p>Being involved in web application programming, I always wondered who created MINI USA. BEAM certainly deserves the recognition they’re getting in the programming and automotive communities. :)</p>
<p>RL…Not sure what “pants” means? Does it mean not as good?</p>
<p>I have been to most of the international sites and find the USA site one of the best but they are all good.</p>
<p>I was just at the site buying a sweater and a pic by Josh Wardell pops up. It’s a pick of a bunch of MINI’s on some mountain top.</p>
<p>How Kool is that…Congrats Josh.</p>
<p>Yes Pants is good… damn good.</p>
<p>hmmm “(MINI is the smallest car on the American road)” Are you sure this is true? I’m pretty sure there is a few cars smaller like the Del Sol or the Miata.</p>
<p>Well, sorry to be the sour grape here but I think that the site in Flash was/is a big mistake. I think there are more elegant and simple solutions out there but some IT guys are sold by brand names (sometimes just to comfort the bosses who know nil, that happened to me when I mentioned Linux and MySQL to some NY VCs back in 1998, they advised me to hire Scient or Viant for a brain check but…).
The content is very good, informative, sharp and irreverent but with flash, the navigation becomes a little cumbersome. My 2 cents.</p>
<p>I think the site is great, even in Flash. </p>
<p>But, I have to agree that the majority of Flash based sites out there just don’t feel right. too slow, to much ‘flash’</p>
<p>JAG – typically I would aggree with you. However in this case I’d say the postives that come with Flash have far out-weighed the negatives. Once more the designers/developers have done a masterful job of dealing with some of the issues associated with Flash sites. </p>
<p>Oh and don’t knock Scient.. they had some great people :)</p>
<p>As per Howard’s question regarding MINI being “the smallest car on American roads” – will someone please explain if this is true? Does the USA get the proliferation of European and Japanese mini cars?
Are there any new small 4 cylinder cars under 1600cc sold in USA?</p>
<p>L8R
GW</p>
<p>I know, I couldn’t afford them, so I went to Viant. The rest is history…</p>
<p>I was contacted by J.D.Powers to take an indepth survey on the MINI Website on Monday It was quite involved and took me over 90 min… while doing it I saw parts of the site I had not seen before While I rated the site well in general I have always hated the size limitation imposed by FLASH I use a 17″ powerbook with a native res of 1440X900 so the MINI site is a small window with tiny type… and it can not be enlarged. changing an LCD monitor to a nonnative res makes it look frankly crummy.
As more andmore folks get high res LCD mon thes tiny Flash based web sites become more and more annoying… as most of them are far worse than the MINI site. I the size problem a basic limitation of flash? hom many potental MINI buyers are still limited to a computer monitor that small? what is the MINI windoid? old VGA size?</p>
<p>I think it really depends on how you use your screen. I personaly like to keep my windows as small as possible in order to get as much on my 15″ Powerbook’s screen. I’d be fairly annoyed if I was forced to endure a flash site that takes up the entire width of my screen (like the new BMW 3 series promo site does). This is really one area where Flash suffers in terms of usability.</p>
<p>BTW Randolph – Do you increase the type size on MotoringFile when you read it? I’ve always been curious if some folks out there do that. If so, how does it look? Are you using Safari or Firefox?</p>
<p>Yes I click once on the larger icon in the safari toolbar for your site though I can read it with my glasses on without doing so…. it is just better for my eyes when I do so… 1440 by 900 does trade realestat for type size and perhaps the young designers of these computers and fancy web sites do not give enough thought to aging eyes…I agree the size thing can go both ways but I want to have some control with the MINI site I can do nothing to make it readable but change my screen res and 1024/640 is the largest I can take it… if I had any vision problems at all the Site would be useless to me… your site I can make as large or small as I want… many other pages that are non flash also become usless if you change font size as the items in the page overlap… there is a lot of bad web design out there it makes me greatful for well designed sites like yours</p>
<p>Randolph – great feedback. I’m always curious to know how people use the site and what they prefer. </p>
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<p>perhaps the young designers of these computers and fancy web sites do not give enough thought to aging eyes…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yeah that would be me 🙂 But when I do design a site (this one included) I always create it with enlarging fonts in mind. I imagine as I get older, the fonts on the websites I create will grow a bit larger ;)</p>