BMW Group restructures its Marketing Communications Agency Network in the Middle East

The Dubai-based regional office of the German manufacturer of the BMW, MINI and Rolls Royce brands has split its marketing communication account among specialised agencies to separately run the four disciplines of its account, namely public relations, creative services, media buying, and client servicing campaign market alignment.

Prior to the restructuring initiative, BMW Group Middle East's full marketing communication account and that of its importer network in the region was handled by one agency, Fortune Promoseven, through their central office in Dubai.

Under the new strategy, the regional office has appointed the Dusseldorf-based creative agency U5 Communications Gmbh as its lead creative agency. U5 is also the lead creative agency for BMW subsidiaries and regional offices in Asia, Australia, North Africa, the Carribean, South Africa and Eastern Europe.

For client servicing of the regional office and importer network, and the market alignment of U5's creative campaign, BMW Group Middle East appointed the Dubai-based Middle East Media Group (MMG) which was set up as an exclusive agency serving only BMW Group and its importers in the Gulf and Levant markets.

Media buying for BMW Group's regional office and its importers will be handled jointly by MMG and its associate media buying house, Media Insight. MMG will be responsible for media planning and will benefit from Media Insight's media purchasing power to obtain the most competitive rates for BMW Group.

Promoseven Weber Shandwick Public Relations, the public relations arm of Fortune Promoseven, was retained by BMW Group Middle East as its public relations consultancy for the regional office as well as the importer network.

"After 19 years with Fortune Promoseven, we decided to adopt a different strategy and align our marketing communications functions in the region with the international strategy, which is to use different agencies for the different marketing disciplines," said Robert Bailey-McEwan, Managing Director of BMW Group Middle East.

Bailey-McEwan added that with the appointment of different agencies, the Group will benefit from the specialisation of each of these agencies in a certain field of expertise, and also to ensure that the company's innovative marketing concepts are creatively and efficiently implemented.

"Our previous agency played a very important role in the early stages of the development of the BMW brand in the region, and we would like to thank them for their contribution to our growth. We now feel that we have to take our marketing communications to the next level, as our customers' tastes and needs become more sophisticated, and that is why we have decided to restructure at this point," he explained.

BMW Group's top executive in the region also pointed out that when restructuring its marketing communications, the company wanted to continue its creative and innovative approach to doing business, and therefore came up with a new concept in advertising through the appointment of an "exclusive" client servicing agency.

"We are the only major blue-chip client in the region which enjoys the full, undivided attention of its creative and client servicing agencies. This is every client's dream and we managed to achieve it with two of our four agencies. Both U5 in Dusseldorf and MMG in Dubai are exclusive BMW Group agencies working on no other account," Bailey-McEwan said.

Ehab Shouly, Regional Marketing Manager, pointed out that the move also comes in response to the demands of BMW Group's importer network in the region, which as dedicated and more customer-focused organisations, needed a more personalised service from their agency porters.

"By splitting the account into different disciplines, we can ensure that our importers in the region will get the highest level of personalised service from the different agencies, rather than having one account handler from one agency responsible for the various disciplines as well as other client's accounts, which leads to a dilution of their attention," he said.

Following the implementation of BMW Group Middle East's restructuring, other BMW Group subsidiaries and regional offices throughout the world are now looking at adopting a similar strategy to maximise their marketing communication resources.