Superbowl ads

This past weekend, we saw the biggest event of the year for marketers working with the American consumer. What event? The Super Bowl, of course. We may ignore the football side of it, but the commercials that run during the game provide us with a plenitude of material for consideration when thinking about our own marketing campaigns.

One of more interesting ads from this year's game for me was the "Built in America" commercial for BMW:


This campaign struck me as particularly surprising, since in the past, BMW has primarily tried to build up an image of the more non-traditional, a little crazy and young, yet luxurious and stylish brand of cars. This Sunday, though, what they did is attempt to appeal to the tradition-valuing crowd. They talked about South Carolina, about Americans building BMW's from scratch, and, last but not least, they placed the ad on the Super Bowl, which also is meant to attract a particular kind of an audience.

So we can see how BMW, perhaps, is reconsidering the way it presents its brand to potential customers. Or, maybe, this was only an attempt to appeal to a secondary market to supplement its usual, eccentric-but-classy crowd.