Case Study 5.1: BMW

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Case Study 5.1 BMW: An Exercise in Aligning Identity, Brand andReputation

BMW, the German car manufacturer, has been strategically focusedon premium segments in the international car market. With its BMW,Mini and Rolls-Royce brands, the company has become one of theleading premium car companies in the world. BMW’s strong identityand marketing campaigns are often credited as a crucialpart of the company’s continuing success. For the last coupleof years, BMW has been rated as the most valuable automotive brandin the world.

At the heart of the BMW identity are four values: dynamism,aesthetics, exclusivity and innovation. These values have beencentral to the company’s leadership in design and are consistentlycommunicated across all its corporate communication, corporatedesign and consumer advertising as well as through the behaviour ofmanagers, designers and retail staff. The brand consultancyInterbrand argues that these four brand values align customers’images and associations with the vision and culture of BMW.

BMW has long focused on innovation but made it the driving forcefor its product development process and its philosophy at the endof the 1990s. Since then, the company has put a lot of emphasis onits research and development (R&D), making it a core element ofits corporate strategy. The innovation process within BMW is aimedat systematically channelling potential innovations to the actualproduct development stage, and to ensure that the company canmaintain its positioning around producing technologically advancedcars. Besides its focus on innovation, the company has also been apowerhouse of creative and aesthetic designs of cars. According toChristopher Bangle, global chief of design for BMW until 2009, ‘ourfanaticism about design excellence is matched only by the company’sdriving desire to remain profitable’. Bangle sees the company’score value as being ‘an engineering-driven company whose cars andmotorcycles are born from passion’. In his words: ‘We don’t make“automobiles”, which are utilitarian machines you use to get frompoint A to point B. We make “cars”, moving works of art thatexpress the driver’s love of quality.’

Besides innovation and aesthetics, the company’s other values ofdynamism (or driving dynamics) and exclusivity are carried throughin all of the company’s communication to consumers and otherstakeholders. They feature as brand promises in dealer and customermaterials, including showroom interior designs, tradeshowmaterials, advertising and customer promotion packages.Particularly through its advertising, the BMW brand has come to beassociated with the words ‘driving’ and ‘performance’. Thecompany’s taglines in many adverts have, for a long time, been ‘TheUltimate Driving Machine’ and ‘Sheer Driving Pleasure’. Accordingto marketing guru Al Ries, this association with ‘driving’ was avery powerful component of BMW’s brand as it led consumers toassociate BMW with high-performing cars. This association alsoreinforced the design excellence of BMW and nurtured for customersthe importance of feelings and pleasure derived from driving anadvanced car.

Branding the Entire Corporation

Besides a strict focus on cars, as products, BMW has also triedto bolster a strong image or reputation for the entire company.Corporate and consumer adverts have, for example, over the yearshighlighted the innovation culture of the company. These adscommunicate BMW’s independence and freedom to pursue innovativeideas, as it is neither owned by nor part of a division of anothercompany. These advertisements still feature the tagline ‘TheUltimate Driving Machine’, but place little emphasis on itshigh-performance features. The focus instead is on the theme of BMWas a ‘company of ideas’, where radical design and ideas areencouraged as a way of supporting the tagline around performance.With this series of ads, the company reinforces the alignmentbetween its internal culture and external image. The series hasalso made employees and existing and loyal customers proud of thecompany’s success story.

BMW has also embarked on a series of ambitious sustainabilityinitiatives, something which it highlights in recent adverts on TV,online and in print. The adverts stress BMW’s achievements indeveloping fuel-saving engines, clean production facilities andstate-of-the-art recycling techniques. BMW also suggests in theseadverts that it is

intent on playing our part in actively shaping the future – forthe long term. We do so both for the common good and for the sakeof the environment: in the interests of our customers – and,naturally, in the interests of our company, its employees and itsshareholders. Because sustainability secures all our futures.

The company in fact aims to integrate sustainability throughoutthe entire value chain, as it believes that sustainability willbecome a must in the premium segment of car makers. As such,embracing sustainability issues, and being at the forefront ofdevelopment, will give BMW a competitive edge. According to the DowJones Sustainability Index, BMW is the world’s most sustainable carmaker, having being ranked at the top since 2005. The company hasbeen driven to develop increasingly better solutions tosustainability issues on the basis of its strong innovationculture, but also to meet the growing expectations of itsstakeholders. BMW in fact believes that sustainability is core toinnovation nowadays and that it can as such be incorporated intothe company’s identity and brand. A good example of this way ofthinking is the BMW i series of electric vehicles. The i3 has thesame sleek design that customers expect of BMW and was in 2018ranked in the top 20 of all electric cars sold worldwide.

Stakeholder Engagement

From 2011 onwards, BMW has also initiated a number ofstakeholder dialogue sessions in major cities across the world toget direct input from stakeholders on sustainability issues andgoals. These face-to-face sessions are, in the company’s words, anew format for ongoing exchange with our stakeholders around theworld. The goal is to create a comprehensive learning process forthe constant development of ideas – which will allow us to alignour company’s goals with the needs and expectations of a globalsociety. This dialogue helps us to identify trends early,strengthen our commitment to society and reach our sustainabilitygoals.

In recent years, these dialogue sessions have become splitbetween separate sessions with experts and with students. BMW haseven set up a specific stakeholder engagement policy to foster andcoordinate stakeholder dialogue sessions across global and localoperations. The company believes that such sessions will beimmensely helpful; the policy states that ‘gaining stakeholders’input on and responding to their needs regarding social andenvironmental issues can improve decision-making and accountabilityand positively influence our license to operate, ourcompetitive advantage, and our long-term success’. In this way,then, BMW aims to listen to its stakeholders on important issues aswell as have another means in place to ensure an effectivealignment between its vision and strategy, its internal culture andthe company’s external image or reputation.