Jumpstart Automotive Group

The ad that swept last year’s Catalyst Interactive Advertising Awards was a big campaign about a little car. MINI’s Zig Zag Zug campaign won top honors for its innovative multi-media approach, and this year the agency is hoping for a repeat performance.

“The whole premise around the MINI campaign (last year) revolved around three words: Zig, Zag and Zug,” said Sankar Patel, Associate Media Director at BSSP (Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners). “Zig represented the Cooper Hardtop, Zag, the convertible and Zug the brand new Clubman. The campaign was designed to remind people that these were all cars with their own personalities but still all part of the family.”

“We didn’t know what to expect, but we were thrilled when we won,” he said.

The Catalyst Awards, brought to you by Jumpstart Automotive Group, celebrates automotive interactive media. Each year, automotive marketers devote more and more of their advertising budgets to interactive media, and some of the brightest creative minds are meeting this challenge by producing innovative, effective advertising specifically for the automotive marketing industry.

The CIAA is the first and only award to recognize and honor the very best of these efforts, as well as to encourage further growth and innovation.

It was this spirit of innovation that led BSSP to create the winning campaign. In addition to featuring the three car models, the campaign sought to highlight some of the vehicles’ features.

“The barn doors are a key feature in the Clubman, so we created a TV spot called Pinball,” Patel said. “In it the back doors of the Clubman were used as flippers in a giant pinball machine. We took that visual and ran with it online, creating an in-banner casual game as well as a version that could be played on the Nintendo Wii.”

So what does BSSP have up its sleeve for MINI this year? Since the Zig Zag Zug campaign the company has gone green with the CarFunFootprint campaign, which showcases the ways in which a MINI can help reduce a driver’s environmental impact. A main component of the campaign is the Carfun Offset program, in which MINI promises to match drivers’ donations to one of three projects that support sustainability and renewable energy.

Patel encourages everyone to check out the Carfun Footprint calculator. “This is a tool we created to let people calculate not only their environmental impact based on the car they drive, but also the fun factor of the car they drive. All the data is real, the environmental impact info comes from the EPA and the fun score comes from Strategic Vision’s new vehicle experience study. We incorporated the calculator into ads and ran a full campaign for this at the tail end of last year.”

BSSP plans to enter the CarFunFootprint campaign into this year’s Catalyst Awards, which will take place at the Opening Reception of the J.D. Power and Associates Automotive Internet Roundtable, October 14th, 2009, at the Red Rock Resort and Spa in Las Vegas.

“(Winning last year) definitely made the team proud. It felt like we really accomplished something in a challenging marketplace and it gave us further validation for the work that was put into it. So many car brands are doing amazing things out there, and to be recognized was a real reason for celebration,” Patel said. “We’re definitely planning on entering the Carfun campaign into this year’s competition and we’re keeping our fingers crossed.”

Click here to view the winning campaign.