How BMW used AI to turn a car design feature into a marketing campaign

BMW is putting a vehicle design intricacy at the center of a marketing campaign powered by artificial intelligence.

The effort spotlights the Hofmeister Kink, which is what the luxury German automaker calls the angular shape of side back windows that has been a design feature on nearly every BMW model since 1962. 

BMW and its CRM agency of record, Interpublic-owned Performance Art, used AI to identify more than 56,000 roads in the U.S. that share the same kink shape as the Hofmeister Kink. BMW enthusiasts can use a special website, Hofmeisterkink.com, to discover roads that match the kink shape from their vehicles, or use a digital library to find roads matching the kink in hundreds of other BMW models, old and new. The campaign is designed to allow users to log the kinks they’ve driven and share their stats on social media. 

In doing so, BMW is attempting to highlight what until now has been a design feature best known by BMW insiders and other car nerds; it lacks the awareness of other BMW design features, such as the kidney-shaped grille. 

The campaign will get paid digital ad support, including on social media channels, and be featured at BMW dealers and on the brand’s app. It comes during the 60th anniversary year of the Hofmeister Kink.

The kink is named for its creator, Wilhelm Hofmeister, who led the BMW design department in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The kink was originally meant to be a “visual indicator of rear-wheel drive and forward momentum,” according to BMW. 

“The Hofmeister Kink represents an important part of BMW’s design legacy, a bit of insider info for BMW owners and enthusiasts,” Kevin Campbell, head of CRM at BMW North America, said in a statement. “The 60th anniversary presents a timely opportunity to celebrate this iconic feature by providing consumers with an engaging platform to drive their own Hofmeister Kink and experience BMW’s performance design ethos on the everyday roads near them.”

Performance Art used images of every BMW model produced since 1962 to create “vectorized versions of each model’s individual ‘kink’ shape,” according to a press release about the campaign.

“Our goal is to help the world rediscover this incredible, iconic brand asset by seeing it with fresh eyes— and then literally driving it,” said Ian Mackenzie, chief creative officer of Performance Art. He added that “using AI to detect and map Hofmeister Kink-shaped curves on a roadmap of the U.S. wasn’t a needle-in-a-haystack kind of task—it was a needle-in-10,000-haystacks kind of Herculean feat.” 

The computation process involved using Google technology and an open-source neural framework called Darknet. The resulting model then analyzed more than 3.9 million miles of roads looking for matches. The agency then used the AI results to create 55,000-plus geo-coordinates to power the user interface, which uses aerial photography and satellite imagery to pinpoint the road kinks.