Creative Advertising: BMW Interactive Boards

I spent many childhood afternoons as the only girl in the room, playing PlayStation games such as “Need for Speed: Most Wanted” and “Gran Turismo 4”. Now that I can finally drive, I’m quite disappointed that the reality of driving isn’t quite as thrilling as I’d always imagined it would be. The video games had sexy cars like Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Maseratis that smoothly veered around corners at over 300 km/ h. The video games also didn’t have traffic signs, speed limits, worn out rubber flooring mats or bumper-to-bumper traffic jams. It was all about freedom, speed and ‘sheer driving pleasure’.

A few weeks ago, I was walking along Long Street in Cape Town when I came across a new advertising campaign created by iLogic (a South African tech firm) for the BMW 1 Series. The company developed an interactive video projection car game that was projected onto major billboards in areas with high foot traffic. People could race each other using their iPads, and their scores and comments were linked to Facebook in real time. I don’t have an iPad, but nevertheless enjoyed watching as people challenged each other and had fun playing video games in the middle of the street. It was definitely a brilliant strategy to get people to talk about BMW (the 1 Series in particular) and indirectly promoted the iPad. According to the video below 105 300 people shared their results with friends on Facebook, and 47 600 people posted their results on their walls.

I thought my PlayStation days were done and dusted, but this innovative campaign and others like it are evidence of the fact that the division between gaming and marketing has been blurred.