BMW’s new Common Sense campaign was one of those middle of the night revelations.
The work, which stars musician/actor Common, promotes the benefits of buying a Certified BMW Pre-Owned vehicle as common sense.
“I had met one of Common’s agents probably four months before shooting this concept,” recalls Timothy Sumter, BMW North America’s senior pre-owned marketing specialist. “We meet a lot of cool people in this job all the time and everybody always says we should do something together but a lot of times it doesn’t really fit with what we’re trying to do. In this case, it was just perfect timing.”
“I was onboarding onto the Certified Pre-owned team and getting a lot of information about the program and what makes us different and I recalled our meeting with Common. I just woke up in the middle of the night and I was like Certified Pre-Owned. It’s Common Sense.”
When it was presented over to the Oscar/Grammy winner, he loved it and thus the ad was born. The effort, created nearly all in-house, broke on the brand and Common’s social channels simultaneously. The effort pushes BMW’s Certified event that is running through the end of October and is airing during the MLB post season, as well as online.
“For the past few years, our national commercial moment has been during the MLB playoffs and championship games and this has worked out well for us in the past so we continue this partnership,” said Sumter.
BMW sees the pre-owned program as an avenue to reach new audiences who are new to the brand, but are attracted to the company’s heritage and quality. “I found this as an opportunity to connect with an audience that’s aspirational, that cares about quality, that cares about a good deal,” explained Sumter. “We’re going to keep growing and trying to make this program visible because for a lot of people, it’s an entryway into the product as well. We want to make sure that we get them in, cultivate that.”
BMW will be back with another spot starring Common next month.
