How do you address millions of people with a corporate event in a time when you’re not allowed to meet anyone? We re-invented the BMW #NEXTGen event format as a unique streamcast experience. For the core of the event website, we developed the Netflix-style web series “Chasing iNEXT” about BMWs new electric flagship. We wanted to create a new visual approach for „classic“ car unveilings. It is meant to be more playful, more imaginative, and, for the viewers, more approachable.

For years, branded content within the automotive industry has tried to evoke emotions by telling passionate stories of superstars and persons of interest.

But why not take what lies so closely at hand? The mostly unknown workers of the company itself. The humans that stand behind all the inventions of a big automotive brand. They are the real superstars of the industry. In 6 informative, entertaining and frequently ironic episodes, the documentary features the smart people working at BMW on solutions for a better, sustainable world. It also shows secret stuff like unpublished prototypes and gives the viewer a look behind the scenes.

The digital 2020 BMW #NEXTGen event took place in November 2020, with different specially designed formats on the BMW.com #nextgen hub. The main focus was placed on the presentation of the new BMW iX. The core of the event, the webseries “Chasing iNEXT”, ramped up to the point of the reveal with episodes being spread out several days before. The humorous and very unusual tonality of the clips was able to boost the series into a “talk of the town” on Twitter and Facebook. Supershort memes were extracted from the core messaging of the documentary and presented on Instagram to push the all-new narration even further.

Beginning in spring 2020, when the pandemic struck, the inevitability of pushing the BMW #NEXTGen event to an all-digital format became clearer every day. Soon discussions about the formats to replace the event began and eventually the idea of a complete 6-part Netflix-style documentary as the core of the event, led by a commenting narrator, entered the room. Numerous visits to Munich by the filmmakers followed, during which the creatives got to know the whole company, its spirit and the protagonists, who were cast in person and digitally over a period of at least 2 months. The two directors wrote a storyboard implementing these characters and their statements as well as several fictional scenes, which were to satirically comment on relevant issues of the car industry. Over the course of 23 shooting days in Munich and Cologne, the series was set up, with editing taking place simultaneously with 3 editors.

Staged on social media and the event-website, the series amassed over 30 million impressions. People spent 14,700 hours watching it online. The healthy dose of self-irony in particular pleased the viewers by defying the typical expectations of automotive documentaries. With the mix of entertainment and infotainment, BMW established a new, innovative and approachable tonality while setting a new standard in a rather old-fashioned type of product communication.