After a 15-year hiatus, BMW Films returns with a ninth film in ‘The Driver’ series starring the 2017 BMW G30 5-Series
After a 15-year absence, the BMW Films series returns with ‘The Escape’, starring the 2017 BMW G30 5-Series. Human stars include Clive Owen and Dakota Fanning.
Produced exclusively for the Internet in 2001 and 2002, The Hire was a series a eight short films, each about 10 minutes in length. One of the first forms of branded content made exclusively for the Internet, the shorts were directed by popular film makers from around the World. Every film starred Clive Owen as ‘the Driver’ in a series of action-packed situations that highlighted the performance aspects of the BMW vehicles profiled.
Success of BMW Films
The Driver series of short films by BMW were a success for the automaker for a couple of reasons. First, they were good movies and second, commercials for a good product. Many have tried to recreate what BMW did but few have succeeded.
Just how successful were the films? More than 11 million viewers tuned in to watch the films and over 2 million registered at the BMW website. Links to the latest film were shared with family and friends after their release. Over the next four years, the films were viewed over 100 million times.
This would be an impressive accomplishment in 2016 but keep in mind that this was 2001 and 2002 before we even had a mass-market online streaming platform such as You Tube.
In 2002, the year after the series began, BMW saw sales number increase 12% over the previous year. The short films were so popular that BMW provided Free DVDs to customers who visited certain dealerships. Produced at an estimated cost of $25 million for all eight short-films, they are attributed to significantly increasing dealer traffic at the time.
The Ninth Film, The Escape
The ninth film in the series released on October 23, 2016 features the 2017 BMW G30 5-Series. Let us hope that there are more short films to be released in the future.
Source: BMW Films
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzUFCQ-P1Zg
