Despite best intentions, most automotive brands aren’t making the most of the rich customer data sitting dormant on their servers. Instead of using what we know about owners to pull them into compelling and creative brand experiences, we prioritize transactional service reminders, aftersales offers, and eventually, a hard sell into their next vehicle. The cost to customer experience and loyalty is high. Our project leverages data’s powerful connective properties to turn a brand shape into a data source, locate that shape on road networks, then connect it all with true 1:1 modularity to the individuals who’ll find it most engaging.

THE POST-PURCHASE BUZZKILL

Buying a BMW is an exciting experience. Once customers receive their new vehicle, however, they can often feel a significant drop in brand love as the relationship changes from courtship to transactional, dominated by service reminders and aftersales messages. This critical part of the customer journey is notoriously difficult terrain for automotive marketers. And the stakes are high: as loyalty levels during ownership are a leading indicator for future purchase intent and overall lifetime value.

BRIEF

Engage current BMW owners with an experience-based program that deepens loyalty and excites fandom during the critical ownership phase of the customer journey.

OBJECTIVES

• Spark engagement among BMW owners and fans.

• Deepen the perceived value of ownership, a bellwether of loyalty and repeat purchase.

• Generate awareness and appreciation of an iconic (but under-penetrated) brand asset.

• Bolster BMW’s innovation credentials at a time of unprecedented category change (electrification).

A WINDOW INTO BRAND LOVE

Though not widely known, the rear window of a BMW contains powerful DNA to the brand’s originality and performance dynamics. If we could activate the Hofmeister Kink for modern audiences, we could deepen loyalty, stimulate joyful engagement, and have owners look again at their BMW with fresh eyes – reappraisal.

THE HOFMEISTER KINK

An AI-driven data visualization that turns a hidden-in-plain-sight design detail into a 1-to-1 drivable brand experience for owners and fans.

A NEW WAY TO EXPERIENCE THE BRAND

Although originally designed as a window shape, it turns out that Hofmeister Kink-shaped roads are also fantastic showcases for BMW’s legendary cornering abilities. In addition to revealing a key brand asset in the country’s landscape, our idea creates a new way to experience the brand, and helps owners and fans look at the roads around them with renewed excitement.

AUDIENCE

Primary: BMW owners

Secondary: Enthusiasts and fans

GATHERING DATA, TRAINING MACHINES

We started by cataloging images of every BMW model since 1962, then created vectorized versions of each model’s ‘Kink’. These vectorized curves were the foundation for our synthetic training set (30,720 variant images), supported by Google Colab for machine learning and a neural framework, Darknet, for computation. Then we trained the model using a convolutional neural network, running detection on the +10-million-mile U.S. road network.

DATA-ENABLED DIRECT

Our direct activation is enabled by BMW’s owner ID records: rich, real-time datasheets containing owner name, model, year, household income, location and more.

“DRIVE YOUR HOFMEISTER KINK”

+2.5-million BMW owners across America received an individualized email with an image of their specific vehicle’s rear window next to a stunning satellite image of the nearest road that matches. With a click, they are fully mapped and ready to drive it.

8-MONTH DEVELOPMENT CYCLE

From the synthetic training set built to introduce mathematical variation, the convolutional neural network for image analysis, the integration of the Mapbox API, US road network TIGER/Line dataset, third-party satellite imagery, through to integration with BMW’s CRM systems, and eventual activation as 1:1 experience for owners – we took the time to build a scalable platform.

CONNECTED KINKS

There are easier ways to find a couple Hofmeister Kink-shaped roads. But we wanted to find them all. And we wanted our data to be rich and connected. Throughout development, we looked to maximize compatibility across datasets: geometric (shape) data connects to geographic data, which connects to satellite imagery, which connects to owner ID records, which connects to deeplinks for every Kink on our site.

PLACEMENT

• Online experience at HofmeisterKink.com

• +2.5 million individualized emails

• Paid social across Meta

• 90-second launch film on BMW USA's YouTube

DRIVER ACTIVATION AND ENGAGEMENT

• +10.8 million miles of road analyzed.

• 42% email open rate, more than double the industry average.

• 1.2 million BMW owners engaged directly.

• 30.5% of engagers were owners who had not engaged in the past year.

• 337% increase in mentions of the Hofmeister Kink post-campaign.

• 100s of social mentions expressing intention to drive (or evidence of having driven) Hofmeister Kink-shaped roads.

WILD BUT TRUE, PEOPLE ACTUALLY DO CARE THIS MUCH

BMW is a brand that inspires deep devotion among enthusiasts around the world. They gather on message boards, at auto shows, in driving clubs and on roads – obsessing over every detail of every model, stretching back to the company’s founding in 1916. Our project seeks to show more casual owners and fans how our superfans see the brand, while rewarding the loyalists with a platform that celebrates the design legacy as much as they do.