In mid-August, BMW seeded a series of videos, photos and eye witness stories on Sina Weibo and other Chinese websites, suggesting that a giant, mysterious crop circle pattern — too symmetrical to be natural — had appeared in the Gobi Desert in Western China.
The photos quickly went viral and sparked numerous conspiracy theories, ranging from UFOs to secret military operations. The original Weibo posting has now been forwarded over 400,000 times and tallied over 18,000 comments.
Domestic magazines, newspapers, and even China’s state media and official news agency picked up the news and reported on the strange phenomenon. The news reports were reposted on 200 forums and bulletin boards generating more than 2 million clicks.
Before the media realised it was all part of a viral campaign by the German automaker, the news had spread all over the internet, stirring up heated discussions. The viral videos were seen on more than 50 websites clocking more than 1.5 million views, with 4.3 million search queries on Baidu and Google.
On 23 August, BMW released a three-minute video which revealed the answer: GPS technology and precision driving on 1 Series cars were used to create this huge pattern. BMW explained that the spirit of the vehicle (and its prospective drivers) is 'UN1QUE' and this fits in with the fake crop circles purported to be left behind by UFOs because UFO stands for the 'Unique For One' range.
BMW is currently leveraging on the buzz of the campaign to recruit the public to participate in the BMW 1 Series driving challenge, meant to attract attention to the official launch of the series at the end of this year, targeting the sporty, urban, youthful Chinese consumer. The race will be held during November and December in Shanghai and Shenzhen with an open call for registration until 19 October. Two people have a chance to win BMWs to drive for a year.
Credits:
Agency: Interone BBDO
Client: BMW
Production Company: Tribe
Executive Creative Director: Maik Lutze
Creative Director: Michael Dralle
Story: Nicholas Kittner
Story: Ferdinand Weinrother
Design: Even Zhang
Agency Producer: Juliana Chung
Production Company: Tribe
Director: Marco Kalantari
Executive Producer: Kjell Kunde
DOP: Wondo
Composer: TaQ
Editor: Kathrin Schmoll
Post: Visual Catering
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