Toronto’s Cundari is one of five agencies shortlisted for the creative assignment for the BMW of North America account, which includes the luxury automaker’s national and dealer advertising in the United States. A decision is expected by the end of August.
According to a report that appeared Thursday on Adweek.com, the other agencies competing for the business include Grey West in San Francisco, The Martin Agency in Richmond, Va. and the New York agencies Gotham and Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners.
Along with Grey and Kirshenbaum Bond – which handle U.S. dealer ads and national project work respectively, according to the Adweek report – Cundari is one of BMW’s roster shops, having held the BMW Group Canada account for the past 15 years. It successfully defended the account last year in a review that saw it shortlisted alongside Bensimon Byrne, Leo Burnett, DraftFCB and John St.
“I think we’re probably the only agency in the group that knows the brand as well or better than the client,” said Cundari’s chairman and CEO Aldo Cundari in an interview with Marketing on Thursday.
Cundari’s recent work for BMW has also garnered international exposure, with an online video showcasing the 1M coupe’s capabilities having garnered more than 1.3 million views on YouTube and write-ups on auto-focused sites such as TopGear.com.
“That obviously shows our chops,” said Cundari of the one-and-a-half-minute video, which shows the 1M drifting through a series of concrete walls at high speed and has sparked debate as to whether it is real or computer generated.
Asked to confirm if the video was created with the aid of special effects, Cundari responded: “What we want is people to make their own determination. The intent is to demonstrate the product’s capabilities. “We like the discussion,” he added. “The discussion is lively.”
Olivia Summers, a Toronto-born, Los Angeles-based stunt driver who has driven in commercials for car companies including Ford, Chevrolet, Toyota and Nissan, and who also performed Kristen Wiig’s driving stunts in the movie Bridesmaids, said she is familiar with the work of stunt driver Greg Tracy (MyLifeAtSpeed.com), who drove the 1M car in the commercial.
While speculating that the “concrete” forms the 1M passes through in the spot likely aren’t real, Summers said the driving technique is genuine. “He’s a pretty phenomenal drifter,” she said. “Without a doubt that’s him driving; you can’t create all that drifting he did. Greg is a bad-ass driver and great at what he does. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was real and he could drive through it – that’s just how good he is.”
“It’s an awesome spot,” she said. “I’m sure a lot of the guys were jealous they didn’t get that.”
She also described Bandido Brothers, the L.A.-based production company behind the spot, as “pretty on-the-edge guys.”
Cundari said his agency is actively looking to open U.S. offices as part of a long-term business plan he wrote in 1996. While the planned U.S. expansion was delayed by a year because of the recession, Cundari said he has enlisted a mergers and acquisitions specialist to find a suitable partner.
“Barring us being able to find that partner with a similar culture that we can adopt, we will probably set up shop from scratch,” said Cundari. “[Winning the BMW] business may expedite that.
“Our plan was always to have a footprint [in the U.S.], and either with this or without this we’ll be down there within a year, a year-and-a-half,” he added. “Our offering and how we offer it is so unique in the marketplace I think it will be refreshing. I’m not saying we’re better than anybody, but I do think we have a completely different offer that everybody else is still trying to achieve and we’ve spent the last 10 years creating that.”
