Creating Brand Moments in Culture

When you fuse cultural moments with BMW brand values you get work that resonates with fans and media alike. From heading up the NYC Pride Parade year after year to showing up for Frank Ocean fans at Coachella, we know when and where a brand should flex to connect and grow its audience.

Since 2018, BMW has led the NYC Pride parade year after year. Custom vehicle wraps merge legacy designs from BMW Motor Racing and the LGTBQIA+ color palette. BMW M8 convertibles carry each year’s Pride Ambassadors, like Dan Levy and Jonathan Adler. The vehicles have been featured across national media and Mayor De Blasio’s official parade address. When COVID shut down the parade in 2020, we staged a symbolic parade with our Pride vehicles driving the route, streamed live to social and broadcast with ABC News.

After years in reclusion, Frank Ocean was going to headline Coachella and rumors were swirling that he was going to perform a new album. In 2011, Frank had released his debut, “Nostalgia, Ultra” with album cover art featuring a vintage BMW E30 – a superfan favorite. So to add fuel to the fan frenzy, we sourced a a vehicle that was an exact match for the album cover, brought it to Coachella and leaked its presence at the festival to Reddit. Fans took the bait and saw the iconic E30 as a sign that a new Frank Ocean album was imminent. With a few simple social posts we got millions of views and BMW became the brand everyone was talking about at Coachella.

Aurora Straus’ resume speaks for itself: she’s a professional race car driver and Harvard student. She’s the epitome of a powerful woman, making her the perfect aspirational figure for the brand on International Women’s Day.

We stoked the flames of brand rivalry on Halloween with a tongue-in-cheek post featuring a BMW M5 “costume” (car cover) draped over a Mercedes-AMG with the caption: “Now every car can dress up as its favorite superhero.” A social frenzy ensued as fans and foes of both brands joined the conversation, driving them to the ShopBMW site where the costume was listed for sale–and where it was unfortunately, “Sold Out.”

As each of the FIFA World Cup Semi-Final and Final matches were decided, in real-time we released a video showing a BMW vehicle in the winning team’s colors scoring a winning goal against their competitor. BMW celebrated each country’s win alongside their fans. The result? A massive amount of organic views and new followers.

We rang in the Lunar New Year with two Ultimate Electric Driving Machines: The BMW iX and pro-golfer Danielle Kang. We used this opportunity to meld these worlds with a short video piece that didn’t seek to overshadow the holiday with brand messaging, but instead shed light on some of Danielle’s family traditions.