Drive In Movies

Hollywood has always loved a great car. Now carmakers are playing studio execs themselves to expose their cars to a wide audience through their own films, not just product placement.

“There’s a fair initiative to further integrate car manufacturers into filmmaking,” says Doug Scott, executive vp-marketing for Hypnotic, a Los Angeles-based production company partly owned by Universal Studios.

DaimlerChrysler Corp. and Hypnotic wrap up the Chrysler Million Dollar Film Festival this month. The yearlong contest sent 10 budding filmmakers to Cannes — and then five of them to Los Angeles — to compete for a $1 million production deal. The winner is announced Sept. 13 at the Toronto Film Festival, after layers of competition that gave Detroit-based Chrysler a platform for promotions and p.r.

The contest began with 25 short films “screened” at Chrysler.com. Consumers and film-industry judges voted for the top 10; those semi-finalists spent 10 days of the Cannes Film Festival writing, shooting, and premiering a five-minute flick that stars either a PT Cruiser or Chrysler Crossfire. Chrysler’s only restriction: Don’t put the car or brand in a negative light. “It’s the obvious constraint you’d expect from a multibillion-dollar brand,” says Scott.

Five finalists lived together in the Chrysler Summer House in L.A. and developed their own million-dollar movie ideas on a Universal Studios lot. When it’s over, one filmmaker gets a contract; Hypnotic hopes to have five viable films. Chrysler wants to reach younger consumers and reinforce its reputation as a design aficionado in fashion, architecture, and film. The carmaker also gets 25 percent of the final film’s profits, and owns the 10 films made at Cannes.

Hypnotic approached Chrysler for the contest’s second run (Discover Card and Sun Microsystems sponsored the inaugural 2001 contest) and worked with Chrysler shop BBDO, Detroit (formerly Pentamark), to set details. Two promo overlays and dealership screenings drove traffic. A View, Vote & Win spring sweeps let Chrysler.com visitors watch and rate the 25 semifinalists; each viewing was a sweeps entry for daily prizes (remote-controlled toy PT Cruisers) and four grand prizes (MP3 and DVD players). The month-long sweeps drove 800,000 film views. A summer Viewer’s Choice sweeps let fans vote on the 10 Cannes films for a chance to win a trip to the L.A. Chrysler House for a party and concert.

Dealers in 10 cities hosted private screenings of Doug Liman’s Bourne Identity, the five Cannes winners, and nine short films Liman directed for Chrysler. Those nine are merged into a single film for the Toronto Film Festival this month, and likely screenings in dealerships.

Chrysler’s sponsorship runs through 2003 with an optional third year. The contest may add foreign markets next year. BBDO will set dealer-driven promos for the 2003 contest — such as videos for test drives, or sweeps sending winners to Sundance — with an assist from Arnell Group, New York City.

I Want to Direct

Credit BMW of America for bringing automakers behind the camera. This fall BMW fields a sequel to last year’s high-profile Hire Film Series, bowing three new films at bmwfilms.com. (See “Best Promoted Brands,” pg. 49.)

“It’s an intellectual mistake to connect films to marketing too quickly,” says BMW North America vp-marketing Jim McDowell. “We’re dedicated to entertainment. People make the link to BMW themselves.”

BMW is also giving away the M5 model used in last year’s “Star” (the Madonna, er, vehicle). The random-draw sweeps runs through October at bmwfilms.com and asks for donations ($10 or more per entry) to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Grand-prize winner gets the car — its dashboard autographed by Madonna — and a trip to the M5 Driving Experience at the BMW Performance Center in Spartanburg, SC. The Komen Foundation keeps entrants’ data.

Woodcliff Lake, NJ-based BMW launched the series last year with four short films by established directors; fans downloaded them 13 million times. The campaign got great buzz, won the PMA’s top Reggie, and its subplots and hidden clues lured fans from around the country to a New York City rendezvous (May PROMO). Fallon, Minneapolis, handles.

Last year, Ford Motor Co. launched Focus in Film Productions with ad shop J. Walter Thompson, Detroit, screening three indy films starring Ford’s Focus (via Atom Films) at Sundance Film Festival and at focusinfilms.com. Focus also rode with indy film site MediaTrip.com for a 33-campus tour, hosting a Focus in Film contest that let students vie for a $15,000 grand prize with short films starring a couple — and a Ford Focus.

Dearborn, MI-based Ford discontinued Focus in Film but continues with “high-profile product placements” including Fox Broadcasting Co.’s American Idol, says spokesperson Mark Schirmer. A Ford Focus on American Idol Sweeps ends mid-September, awarding a grand-prize Focus.

“No one wants to do what everyone else is doing, so we won’t see a lot of other companies [making films],” says Automotive News reporter Julie Cantwell. Auto-funded films may reach younger viewers and drive traffic, but it’s tough to track the real impact on sales. Upscale brands like Lexus and Cadillac prefer to park at star-studded events and get celebs behind the wheel for a soft sell.

Some repeats work. Volkswagen of America, Auburn Hills, MI, this fall replays its four-year-old Major Motion Picture Show campus tour, and adds Volkswagen Music Ed. Tour ’02, traveling to college campuses in 20 cities. The music tour stars Rusted Root, Mike Doughty, and the winner of VW’s ongoing Battle of the Bands; a VW Village hosts entertainment and games like Pack the Beetle and Make a Music Video. Clear Channel Entertainment, New York City, handles.

VW’s Major Motion Picture Show — now in its eighth semester — hits 18 campuses this fall to screen Spider-Man and host games. “We want to create a fun way for students to learn about VW in a non-hard sell fashion,” says VW manager of promotions, sponsorship and product placement Heidi Korte.

Ride on.

Mini Me

BMW didn’t ask to put a Mini in Austin Powers in Goldmember. That was Mike Myers’ idea.

The film’s writer and star “is a huge Mini fan; he owns a classic Mini,” says Kerri Martin, Mini’s guardian of the brand soul at BMW of America. But it was too early in Mini’s relaunch planning to commit to a film tie-in, so BMW let it pass. (Jaguar is the film’s official partner.) Still, Myers wrote Mini into the script, so BMW provided cars for filming.

But that’s as far as Mini goes, says Martin, who fields pitches from marketers eager to get in the front seat together. “We’ve had lots of requests for trade-outs — from business-to-business to packaged goods — but we made a commitment to our dealers, and we won’t give cars away.”

They don’t have to. BMW has sold 10,000 Minis since March — its goal is 20,000 by yearend — and marketers are buying them off the lot to put in prize pools or event-marketing tours. Goldmember partner Taco Bell parked a Mini (and $1 million) as grand prize to its Peel It Off & Win, Baby sweeps. Evian Natural Spring Water took three Minis on a seven-city sampling tour this summer, with a sweeps giving away 20 Minis (as well as iMac computers, Nikon digital cameras, and Evian decanters). US Concepts, New York City, handles. Lipton Tea parent Unilever bought six Minis as fast as it could, wrapped them with Lipton imagery and shipped them off to bottlers for summer sampling gigs. The cars were awarded to consumers and bottlers at summer’s end. (GMR Marketing, New Berlin, WI, bought and prepped the cars for Unilever.)

BMW won’t consider joint ventures, but Martin works “with people who choose to use Minis to make sure the brand is presented properly because that’s very important at this early stage of the branding process,” she says.

Mini’s own campaign, via Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Miami, uses methods as unique as Mini: Ads in airports sit alongside oversized phone booths, newspaper boxes, and trash cans to put the headline — “Makes everything else seem a little too big” — in proper perspective. Hollywood prop designers built the accoutrements, which likely will reappear at auto shows or guerilla marketing events next year. “They’ll definitely be reused, because they’re so real,” laughs Martin.

The Mini Ride — reminiscent of the old supermarket pony ride — plants a real Mini on a pedestal that says “Rides $16,850 — quarters only, please.” It travels to seven malls through October. A Mini Mold — a real car wedged between two halves of a giant mold — travels to festivals and entertainment venues. “It’s an unusual way to display the car,” Martin explains.

And it fits.