The guy who gave the greenlight to an ad that didn’t get the brand voice, has now chosen a new agency- to “boost its online presence.” Unfortunately, this is another case of the blind leading the blind – Marketing Communication Director Laurence Kuykendall (who used to work at former agency Merkley + Partners- before jumping to the client side) picked “The Concept Farm” as the new agency- because of their “capabilities in guerilla, interactive and Web work” – yet their site still has a retarded Flash intro and only indexes three pages in Google.
Kurkendall claims that Merkley lost key players on the account who were “motorcycle aficionados” – yet, the people at Merkley seemed to have a contempt for the people who choose to ride BMW- as can be witnessed by the exchange on this site late last year.
Quite frankly, with a two-million dollar ad budget and requiring motorcycle riding creatives, one must wonder if NYC is the right place to have the account? Not only are costs lower in other parts of the country- but the likelihood of having people who ride their motorcycles more than the subway is statistically higher.
The good news for the Concept Farm is that they can’t do much worse than the “Hibachi” ad- the bad news for BMW riders is that the guy who approved that ad- still is in charge.
Please note- the closest BMW motorcycle dealer to Dayton OH closed Dec. 31 (Cincinnati), Indianapolis closed last year- and I’ve heard rumor that the dealer in Athens OH no longer stocks new bikes. Hint to BMW Motorrad- if we can’t get to a dealer- no amount of advertising, guerilla or online- will help you sell more bikes.