MF Exclusive: After a arduous process and some excellent competition from Mother of New York and Strawberry Frog, MINI USA has chosen Butler Shine, Stern and Partners as their new ad agency.
BSSP may be best known for their recent work with Sprite, Converse and Sun Microsystems. However it’s not clear what road the Sausalito based agency will take with the MINI USA account. While Crispin Porter + Bogusk were hailed for their work as MINI USA’s first agency, there were a few issues that will need to be addressed in the years ahead. It will certainly be interesting to see how BSSP deals with them.
That aside, we at MotoringFile wish the fine folks at BSSP all the best in their upcoming partnership with MINI USA. While the bar may have been set high by CP+B, we expect great things in the years ahead.
Related:
[ MINIUSA Loses It’s Advertising Agency to VW ] MotoringFile
Can someone remind me why they switched agencies in the first place? momentary lapse of memory on my part…
VW was willing to pay them ALOT more money..
Hunter – the related story link should answer your question.
Well it ought to be fun to see how they will top the last firm. I hope whatever they do it’s as tongue in cheek, even though that seemed to bother some of the more conservative MINI family. Sausalito, one of my favorite places in Ca.
I love their website with the partners page. I have not seen that type of rotating flash animation before. Rather cool. I was disappointed that they haven’t updated their site to list “MINI” as one of their clients. Hopefully it will be soon.
FPANDA
<blockquote>I love their website with the partners page. I have not seen that type of rotating flash animation before. Rather cool. I was disappointed that they haven’t updated their site to list “MINI†as one of their clients. Hopefully it will be soon.</blockquote>
Well part of that has to do with the fact that they probably just found out a few hours ago.
Gabe,
Would you care to elaborate on what “obvious shortcomings” the previous ad agency had?
(exclusive? I read this somewhere a week or more ago; I wonder where …)
<blockquote>(exclusive? I read this somewhere a week or more ago; I wonder where …)</blockquote>
Ian – I believe you’re referring to BMW’s annoucement for their new Ad Agency a few weeks back. MINI just notifed the three agencies in contention today so you couldn’t have read it before this afternoon.
Edge – I reworded that sentence so it wasn’t as strong. I think CP+B did an incredible job launching the brand in the US but the in the years ahead I think there are some areas that will have to be dealt that haven’t been spoken too much.
OK then, would you care to elaborate on the “issues” or “areas” that will need to be addressed? 🙂
If they haven’t been spoken too much, maybe it’s time to speak about them now. 😀
Old ads were definitely good, but never really created or promoted cohesion or bonding between MINI owners.
It was definitely something I found missing in the ads that was reflected in the community… just something to improve upon.
I agree that though CP&B did some great things for MINI, there is certainly plenty of opportunity to do more great things with the brand. Though BSSP has big shoes to fill, they’ve also inherited a great brand. I for one am excited to see what fresh eyes do with MINI.
On a completely unrelated note, I just stumbled upon spell-check built into the form fields in Safari. I knew about the dictionary keyboard shortcut for Safari and Mail, but didn’t know the spell check was there. It doesn’t do the red underline, but it’s there if you just ctrl-click a word you’re not sure about. Go Mac!
fpanda check this out
<a href="http://www.playmobil.de/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/gb/-/GBP/PM_Storefront-Start;sid=5GerAFc3-T2rBxSutMRojwvjacJyRaZ9IgM=?PLS=0" rel="nofollow ugc">http://www.playmobil.de/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/gb/-/GBP/PM_Storefront-Start;sid=5GerAFc3-T2rBxSutMRojwvjacJyRaZ9IgM=?PLS=0</a>
Same style. nothing new, but quite impressive. 😉
I guess that means we’ll all be say’n “sho me my mott-o Let’s Motor” 🙂
Cheers,
Jack
Here’s another article about the selection: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/business/media/09adco.html" rel="nofollow ugc">http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/business/media/09adco.html</a>
An excerpt: “Appropriately, Ms. Hardy and Mr. McDowell notified Butler, Shine’s employees that they won the review in a nontraditional way: A bulldog was sent into the agency’s office, wearing a collar decorated with clues to the decision written on replicas of California vanity license plates.”
What a creative way to award the account! Sounds like the beginning of a great relationship.
Edge,
I can’t speak for gabe but I’m thinking that it would be very easy for MINI to fall into the same trap as VW did with the Beetle. It didn’t seem that CP+B was actively trying to prevent that. However, who knows what was in the works before VW came along to court CP+B. Considering the time that it takes to shift strategy and create the great marketing that we have been seeing, something could have been in the works but we never saw it. But, I could be wrong.
Mike
What I’d like to see in future MINI advertisements—is the MINI’s other side. I like all the previous ads and TV commercials. I think they are very cool and different. However there needs to be an emphases on the MINI as a one of the most competitive, high performance sports cars in its and higher classes.
What I usually receive from the people, who try to show that they’ve seen the MINI before, is: “It’s like a toy, isn’t it?”
MINI’s beast side has to be revealed!
yegor,
have you not seen the spot where the MINI covered with a fast and furious body? it’s pretty beasty.
mike
Mike, Where is that? could anyone post a link? sounds interesting.
I also think the MINI needs to be seen as a serious car. The goofy and aloof campaign served its purpose but it’s time to move on.