Woodcliff Lake, NJ - BMW of North America and its advertising agency GSD&M Idea City are rolling out a 3-D virtual vehicle tour to herald the arrival of the first-ever BMW X6. Going direct to target consumers with a hologram of the vehicle, the world's first sports activity coupe will be featured in prominent buildings in New York City's financial district over a four-week period.

Employing patented technology from Dutch advertising company viZoo, the 2008 BMW X6 will be projected in three dimensions, appearing as a hologram, inside a ten-foot square, BMW-branded enclosure. Inside the light-controlled space, an animation suggesting the vehicle's unique combination of coupe agility and sports activity vehicle versatility runs on a loop.

"Busy finance executives represent an important sampling of the target consumers for the new BMW X6," said Jack Pitney, Vice President, Marketing, BMW of North America. "Since these prospective buyers rarely have time to visit a dealer showroom, our virtual tour allows them to 'experience' the performance, agility and utility of the X6 by bringing the showroom to them."

An interactive touch-screen inside the enclosure will allow people to manipulate the vehicle hologram to view different angles, experience the interior, explore the vehicle features, and get a sense of the generous cargo space.

"The BMW X6 doesn't look like anything BMW has ever produced - you have to see it to believe it," said Duff Stewart, President and COO of GSD&M Idea City. "Our goal was to put this amazing vehicle in front of its best prospects and stop them in their tracks."

The BMW X6 virtual tours will be open in each New York City location on Monday through Friday during regular office hours, and will be staffed by brand ambassadors during peak times. The building locations and dates are as follows:

A media partnership has been forged with CNBC-TV to help further the BMW X6's reach among members of the financial and business community. On the television news network, the new BMW X6 will drive across the top of the screen as part of a reverse stock ticker - a first for any advertiser. Additionally, BMW is the first automotive company to sponsor a taping of CNBC-TV's "Power Lunch," on location recently at The Four Seasons Restaurant in New York City, where real-life power lunches take place everyday. The new BMW X6 was on display.

On the West Coast, a media partnership with Variety will introduce the BMW X6 to target consumers in the entertainment industry as part of the latest installment of the "10 to Watch" series, "10 Innovators to Watch," in both print and online editions dated May 5th. To extend the partnership with the leading entertainment industry trade, BMW will join Variety in supporting the Consumer Electronics Association's Digital Hollywood Conference in Los Angeles from May 5th-8th. BMW will be the exclusive automotive sponsor of the conference, will stage an X6 display in front of the conference venue and, along with Variety, a Digital Hollywood media partner, will host a "10 Innovators to Watch" panel discussion followed by a cocktail party.

Aggressively styled print ads telegraph the attitude of the new vehicle with bold taglines like "Coupe's evil twin" and "What is it? What isn't it" set in a heavy typeface. The ads will appear in April, May, and June issues of national business/financial, lifestyle and automotive enthusiast magazines, including: Forbes, The Economist, Condé Nast Portfolio, Robb Report, The New Yorker, Cigar Aficionado, Automobile, and Road and Track.

A national cable television spot, directed primarily at viewers of business, news and sports networks, supplements the campaign. The 30-second piece, entitled "Clay," shows a lump of clay morphing between a variety of vehicle shapes, evoking the BMW X6's performance-based roots, until finally landing on the distinctive form of the sports activity coupe. The clay model is replaced by a Vermillion Red Metallic BMW X6, and a voiceover says, "The coupe has been reshaped. The all-new BMW X6." The spot will appear on such national cable television networks as Bloomberg, MSNBC, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, ESPN, NFL Draft on NFL Network, The Golf Channel, NBA Playoffs on TNT, and the Speed Channel.

Other highlights of the comprehensive ad campaign for the 2008 BMW X6 include:

A virtual design studio tour on the BMW web site will allow visitors an inside look at the design and development of the BMW X6. Modeled on the BMW design studio in Munich where the world's first sports activity coupe was conceived, the interactive piece will be available at its website.

Courtesy: BMW Group, USA

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Posted by Jigar Gondalia on 30 April, 2008 5:01:07 PM IST #