BMW Films

In my first post, I told you guys that my love affair began with a viral video BMW produced to show their cars in action. Let me give you a background to BMW's viral video campaign.

The BMW film series, The Hire, was a series of eight short films. These films were produced for the internet in both 2001 and 2002. Each video consisted of actor Clive Owen as the driver and highlighted BMW vehicles. Each short film was directed by a world renown director, with actors such as Forest Whitaker, Mickey Rourke, Ray Liotta and James Brown.

BMW premiered the first short film, Ambush on April 26, 2001 on the BMW Films website. BMW then featured Ang Lee's Chosen two weeks later. Films The Follow and Powder Keg rounded out the first year of the series. After the series began, BMW saw their 2001 sales numbers go up 12 percent from the previous year. The movies were viewed over 11 million times in four months. Two million people registered with the BMW Films website and a large majority of users posted links on blogs and other social mediums. The German automaker created DVDs and gave them to those who bought a BMW.

These viral videos were a great success for BMW, and loved by all beemer fans, including myself. The series had been viewed over 100 million times in four years and had changed the way products were advertised. Here are the first four films in the series, including my favorite, Star.


Ambush


Chosen


The Follow


Star