How Do You Get the Most Attention at the New York Auto Show? Don’t Even Show Up

MINI USA is placing cheeky billboards, and is traveling to new heights (a plane), contextually around the Javits Centre, where the Auto Show takes place. Created by Goodby Silverstein & Partners, creative leads within MINI USA’s wider interagency team, the billboards and out-of-home challenge 'car people' –– AKA Auto show attendees working for other OEM car brands –– to ditch the boring convention and test drive a 3x Monte Carlo Champion instead.

In case MINI USA doesn’t intercept Auto Show attendees before they arrive at Javits, MINI USA has sneakily placed their message on Volta charging stations inside the convention centre as well.

“MINI is a brand that has always carved its own path. We’ve been the feisty underdog, taking on bigger brands with Brit-grit, humour, and most of all fun." said Kate Alini department head, marketing, product and strategy for MINI USA. “With this campaign we are taking a page out of the old MINI playbook and disrupting in ways that only MINI can."

The morning before the show, MINI will also run two full-page ads in The New York Times. One tells car enthusiasts to skip the static showroom floor and experience the thrill of test-driving a MINI for themselves. The other serves as the MINI Manifesto—a declaration to the rest of the world that MINI is not a car. It’s an unconventional street-legal go-kart with a British wit and rebellious spirit.

In other parts of New York City, MINI will place 'wild postings” speaking directly to each borough, inviting them to ditch conventions and drive a go-kart.

As a victory lap, MINI USA will follow the “car people” back home, placing billboards right outside the headquarters of the car brands whose taglines MINI used in the work – Mercedes, Porsche and Jeep – inviting their employees to 'ditch work and book a test drive.'

“MINI is not a car, it’s a street legal Go-Kart, and we know the brand doesn’t show up in ways a traditional car brand would – like at an Auto Show. Instead, we developed a creative approach that points out in a “MINI way” that driving is more fun than looking at a bunch of static display cars,” said Mason Douglass, senior copywriter at GS&P.