Let's Motor (MINI USA launch)

Why it works

How do you launch a tiny British car in the land of the SUV without a television budget? When BMW brought the MINI back to America in 2002, after a 36-year absence, Crispin Porter + Bogusky skipped the usual network commercials and built the launch from magazines, billboards and the street, most famously by mounting real MINIs on top of SUVs. Long-copy boards and ads explained the British habit of "motoring" and opened with a deliberate anti-SUV stance, giving a small car a culture of its own. It is studied as a founding case of the low-budget, media-led brand launch, in which where and how an ad appeared carried as much of the idea as what it said. The brand ran just one TV spot in its first year; the agency said the car sold through the roof. The campaign won the Magazine Publishers of America's $100,000 Kelly Award grand prize and Best of Show at the 2003 One Show.