Maxi Interview with Mini's USA Chief Jim McDowell
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Special Report
By Marty Bernstein
AIADA Contributing
Editor
McDowell shows off the new Mini uniform.
Since
joining BMW in 1993 after eight years with another German auto
manufacturer, Porsche, McDowell has made a personal and professional
impact on both the automotive and marketing
industries.
For
12 years under his watch as vice president of marketing for BMW, the
brand became the brand of choice for millions who had a passion for
owning or leasing the ultimate driving machine. It represented
prestige, performance and pride – all with a capital
P.
Along
the way, McDowell has collected a metaphoric trophy-case of awards and
honors for his marketing and advertising acumen, impact and expertise. Four years ago, in 2002, he was named the Automotive News “Marketer of the Year,” and he was
twice named “Marketer of the Year” by Brandweek
magazine. The Advertising Club named him the “2003 Silver Medal
Advertising Man of the Year.” In 2000, BMW was
featured as “the ultimate brand” in the brand challenges series
of the Wall Street Journal. He was
twice listed in the Advertising Age Marketing 100, and in
2002, was featured in Advertising Age’s “The
Age of Ideas” series. Not bad accolades for a guy whose educational
CV has an academic look to it.
Then,
last year, in a switch that caught the industry by surprise and to the
puzzlement of many, he and Jack Pitney, then general manager of Mini,
switched jobs. Jack took over Jim’s job and
became BMW’s vice president of marketing, and Jim moved over to Mini
as vice president.
Both
took on a major challenge with the switch – how could they make an
impact on respected, dynamic brands without switching the paradigm? The
best analogy I can use is the change both men made from BMW’s
corporate
suit and tie to Mini’s casual sweaters and slacks, and vice
versa. Aside from the sartorial implications, it had
to be a new way of thinking, acting and responding to market
conditions.
Then, in a surprising scenario, CPB – the
award winning advertising agency that launched Mini in
As
they say in LA, that was the “back story” when I sat with Jim a
couple
months ago during the New York Auto Show for a wide-ranging
conversation. As always, McDowell was personable, funny, articulate and
confident in a quiet way.
MB: Did your new agency develop
the material used in your stand?
JMcD: No they did not … but
some of their work is starting to be seen now, especially in outdoor
boards. One in
MB: Is outdoor (some call it
out-of-home) an important medium for you.
JMcD:
It’s a great communications tool. We’ve got a huge outdoor
board in
which the Mini has a very small part or portion of the board. The copy says, “A small car gives something back to
others.” The majority of the board is for a charitable
organization.
MB: The new agency obviously has
a certain stylistic edge, right?
JMcD:
Without a doubt, they really get Mini; one of the things that greatly
impressed us at the beginning was the fact that they understood the
branding part of it. They did not recommend gigantic branding changes
to what we had done historically.
MB: The new agency,
JMcD:
The other thing that really impressed us was that they understood the
dealer aspect of Mini. They have a dealer creative team that just
addresses the retail issues. And they had some really good retail ideas
from the beginning.
MB: Tell me something about your
dealers …
JMcD: We have 80 dealers. Now, I
can go visit 80 dealers. This is tangible. I
can get my arms around the entire business. In that way, whenever I
hear or learn there’s an opportunity to change something or an issue
at
any Mini dealer, I may have met the service manager. As a result,
I’ll
know how they’re set up, where the showroom is and how it works, and
can imagine what it is we’re talking through. So, it’s not a
mystery to
me.
MB: That’s a very tight
group, how many have you visited?
JMcD: I’ve been to 60 of the
80 dealers. And
I am not far from reaching my goal. But the last 20 are the most
difficult in terms of their location, so it may take me a little while
to visit with them.
MB:
Tell me about your switch from the coat and tie BMW business to the
sport shirt and slacks Mini business. What has it meant to
you?
JMcD:
One of the great joys about working at Mini is our customers. They’re
so interesting and so much fun to be around – Uncomplicated
people… the
kind who wake up in the morning with a smile on their face. From that
perspective, anytime a customer calls I have all the time in the world
to talk with him or her. I enjoy meeting our customers … my family
enjoys meeting them too. That brings much enjoyment
to the new job.
MB: More personalized than the
BMW mother ship, right? Less
structured?
JMcD:
I hesitate to make the connection, except that Mini is such a small
group that everybody has a role and nobody to second guess that role.
Everyone has role and I don’t question what they’ve done or
how. The
other thing that is so wonderful about the Mini brand is that we are
“mistake tolerant”… so long as you have a human side
about you.
MB: Can you explain
that?
JMcD:
In other words, if you’re nice to people and it takes you two minutes
to get the bottle of water before starting the conversation, they
understand. And we have the time to do that; to talk with people, and
see what’s on their minds … to spend time listening.
That’s the part of
it I love.
MB: Does this carryover to your
dealers as well?
JMcD:
From my experience, very much so. Many of our dealers have hired people
because they have excellent people skills. And because they have great
people skills, they’re great in building relationships. And
that’s
actually more important at Mini than trying to convince someone to take
delivery of a car they didn’t want.
MB: How does this work on the
showroom floor in a selling environment?
JMcD: You want to build the
relationship, the confidence. Maybe
they want a new Mini from inventory, yet we show them how they can
customize it to make it unique themselves. Maybe they want one build to
order and are willing to wait for it. We are willing to work with them
however is best for them.
MB: From the new beginning of Mini
in
JMcD: Yes, but let me explain.
There are two forms of customization I’d like to split. One
of which is the amazing array of choices a consumer can make at the
time the Mini is specified. What other manufacturer gives you as many
choices of, for example, what color your dashboard should be? Do you
want red? Yellow? Aluminum? Wood? We give a lot of choices along the
way other manufacturers just don’t offer. We give the customer an
opportunity to totally customize the interior of their Mini they way
they want it.
MB: And what about the exterior
of a Mini?
JMcD: Custom roof designs are just
the beginning of the choices a customer has in Mini – it’s
extensive.
MB: In visits to Mini dealers,
I’ve seen a big assortment of accessories. How important is that to
you and the dealers?
JMcD:
We have so many interesting accessories, and what’s really cool about
it is that the average Mini owner spends $5,000 on either accessories
or options for their Mini. Then, when they
come back for the free oil change, we have a highly accessorized car
sitting next to their car and many want to upgrade or change what they
now have. So, while the oil is being changed, the new part or accessory
is added to the order. People do keep adding to their cars.
MB: Twenty-five percent of car
purchase price?
JMcD: I don’t believe anyone
sells the breadth and volume of accessories that we do.
The
car is not complete until I’ve made it me. We call it
“you-ification”…
you make it in the way you want in order to reflect your personality.
MB: Mini customers seem to have
developed a passion for their cars. How do you explain this rather unique
product attribute?
JMcD:
People make these very individual choices at the beginning of their
ownership experience. Then, they hear about something new or different,
find it on the web or while chatting with other Mini owners to expand
their experience and ownership.
MB: That’s unusual in the
car business, right?
JMcD:
The only thing I can liken it to is the people who are highly involved
with their computers… particularly true with Apple computers. Every
year, they put in the new operating system, buy more memory, they get a
fun new mouse, they change something on the keyboard … it
doesn’t seem
like they’re ever done.
MB: So, your buyers aren’t
complacent with the status quo are they?
JMcD:
You would think people would buy something and say, “That’s it
… I’m
gonna use it for three years and not change it anymore.” That’s
not the
way a Mini motorist thinks. They want to constantly make this great car
that much better.
MB:
Carlos Ghosn has said the automobile industry has to instill more
passion for their cars, much like the passion for cell phones and
iPods. Do you agree with him?
JMcD:
Be there no doubt. We love getting together with our customers and
sharing that passion with them. And it’s an uncomplicated passion
because it’s passion from the heart, not the ego. Historically, some
people have made automotive choices because of what they think people
will think of them afterwards. You buy a Mini because of what you will
think when you’re motoring with it. From that perspective, it opens
up
the distances between people as opposed to closing off people.
MB: How involved are customers in
describing what they want in their cars?
JMcD:
The interesting thing is like any car company, we do some market
research. But, unlike other car companies, we have 40,000 new
purchasers every year. And you know what, we go to enough customer
events – we make actually meet 5 to 10 percent of them personally.
When
you’re sitting at a table or whatever you’re doing with the
customer,
it’s easy to ask, “Is there anything we’re missing? Is
there anything
you’d like added to the car? Something you like or something you
really
don’t like?” It’s an opportunity to re-engineer something
you really
don’t like. It’s incredible input.
MB: There’s got to be lots
of fun for you to push sales even higher …
JMcD: Ah,
it’s the team that does it! The joy for me is that I have such an
incredibly good team – they know what they’re doing and
don’t need
someone to come in and control the situation. So, I’m looking at
where
I can potentially add value.
MB: How has this affected your
relationship with the dealers?
JMcD:
So far it’s been getting to know each of our dealers and the people
who
work at our dealerships. It’s funny, but very soon I will have met at
least 50% of the dedicated Mini technicians in the country –
isn’t that
wild? The reason I don’t know more is they are occasionally out for
training the day I come in.
MB:
That builds confidence on their part too; I can imagine a tech saying,
“I was talking to the president of Mini recently and yada
yada…” This
has pay off for them too.
JMcD: Thanks for saying that. One
of the things we were missing was a Mini technician’s uniform. In a
lot
of shops the technicians were still wearing BMW uniform, and all we had
to customize it was a little Mini patch. But at our recent national
Mini sales conference in
MB: I feel a pitch coming on. How
did you present the new uniforms?
JMcD:
Several members of the team went to lunch with everyone in our normal
clothing and then a couple of us went backstage and changed into these
incredible new Mini uniforms to make the
presentation.
MB: Their
response?
JMcD: They thought they were
great.
As
a marketer, I believe this is the thinking and planning that will help
Mini continue the growth that began just four years ago. A recent
announcement noted the brand has already sold 120,000 Mini vehicles,
substantially above initial projections.
If the success of Mini isn’t a case
history presentation at the business grad