MINI
Driving the Experience of Car Shopping
Continually Reinventing Customer Experience with Strategy, Creative, Design, Content, and Tech Across All Digital Touchpoints.
Services
Needs & Behaviors Research
Adobe Platform Implementation
Configurator Design & Development
CRM Strategies & Programs
Journey Analytics
Journey Mapping
Marketing & Sales Platform Definition
Personalized Lead-Gen & Conversion
Segment & Signal Definition
Website Design & Development
Challenge
Define, build, and optimize an ever-more cost-effective lead generation and conversion machine. And continually rethink the experience of shopping for and owning a car in ways that foster word-of-mouth and the deepest possible brand love.
Outcome
Developed personalized acquisition programs, the dot-com, a leading configurator, the in-dealer digital experience and all CRM strategy and content. We also built and managed a content and marketing infrastructure to power it all.
Results
— Online channel conversion rates exceeded industry averages year-after-year
— Became a Harvard Business School case study.
— Won awards including Webby, Cannes Lions and One Show
— Featured in Newsweek and The New York Times
A More Visual, Tactile and Effective Dot-Com
Informed by user interviews, shadowing and co-design sessions (and lots and lots of historical data), we created a feature-rich, tactile, nimble, personalized and fully responsive experience like nothing else in the category. And we took our already high-performing configurator and made it even better, adding a Slider Config “quick-path” via which users were 67% to save a configuration and 102% more likely to become a lead.
Every now and again, a site will come along that makes you say ‘This is what the web’s all about.’ The coolest online experience you’ve had in months.
USA Today
“In God We Trust, All Others Bring Data.”
Data was at the heart of everything we did as we paired customer profile data, look-alike analysis, 3rd party data sources and rigorous A/B testing with customer interviews and prototype testing. It was all done in the name of more intelligently identifying the lifestyle and shopping signals that mattered most and understanding the right content, offer or experience to deliver at the right time - across the entire prospect journey.
Opportunistic / Ongoing Surprise and Delight
One day, MINI’s email servers malfunctioned and spammed several hundred prospects and owners with thousands of emails. Within 48 hours, we Fed-Ex’ed them a little apology kit consisting of a stress-ball in the form of a spam can, a chocolate rose, a note and some duct-tape to repair the relationship. The story of the kit yeielded millions of impressions and went to number one on Reddit for an afternoon.
We also used our understanding of the brand and target and just tried stuff: Like doing an editorial partnership with a venerable news source. Creativity Magazine called it one of the top print ads of the last 20 years.
A Better Owner Experience
We devised targeted onboarding streams that offer assistance, inspiration and education during ownership onboarding. They also fostered connections to the broader ownership community and strengthen ownership experience throughout their time with their MINI. We also created customized return-to-market streams to drive renewed shopping/re-purchase interest with relevant communications timed to FS and in-market triggers. And we created an owner welcome kit with a box built to double as a picture frame in which you could display a shot of your first drive in your new MINI.