A and B in title represent to Above the Line (ATL) and Below the Line (BTL) Marketing aspects respectively. In most of my discussions with individuals in leading retail consumer oriented business marketers I keep referring to the death of traditional Advertising and Marketing as we know it and new age marketing is being reborn.

Despite of acceptance to the overall construct of the argument above the impact of such an endeavor i.e., birth and growth of BTL or rather change in approach in marketing in Indian market has not been that fast. We still over-rate public media like Television Channel, Outdoor Hoardings, Press Ads, etc and spend considerable amount of marketing budgets on these unmeasurable media. I thought at this time it is appropriate to highlight BMW’s Mini Cooper Marketing case-study I read in the recent past how they are getting ready to play the marketing game with new rules.

Mini Cooper is one of my favorite cars/brand has recently released a case-study on how they are trying to leverage customer data in marketing. Having understood ATL as an approach cannot be knocked down in their business, they have devised a strategy to change the meaning of ATL marketing. Cars that have been bought in the recent past comes with a key with RFID embedded into it, as its obvious the ID carries adequate data that can be read by receivers to pick up a pre-defined frequency. By collaborating the age of the car, type of the owner and service history records, Mini has personalized hoardings across the town. Get my drift?

Yes, if you own a Mini-Cooper and drive across the street, a hoarding will pick up the data from your key (RFID) and personalize the message on the hoarding. Can you smell BTL walking into ATL’s territory? Do not be amazed if you happen to se a message like this on one of the mainroads.

“Dear Mr.Smith, we would like to inform you that you are one of the chosen customers for a car upgrade with a convertible model with 2100CC turbo-charged engine. As your EMI is about to get over in two months, we would like to inform you that the car you’re driving will be bought back by us at 40% of the purchase value and remaining can be paid by continuing your EMI for another 36 months, there can’t be any other simple way to drive a superb car like Mini Cooper 2100 Covertible.

If interested, kindly call 1800-MINICOOP and refer last six digits of your registration number to avail the offer. The offer is valid for another 30 days.

Have a Nice day!“

Isn’t that interesting?

I am sure such changes in marketing is not a far away affair anymore. Consumer should be told what they are interested in, organization should reset their marketing orchestra and avoid playing Heavy Metal to Miles Davis 24/7.