Windows Azure

Customer Solution Case St

BMW Supports Mode

Prospects with Cloud
Marketing

Customer: BMW Group

Website: www.bmwlat.com
Customer Size: 5,000
Country or Region: Latin America
and the Caribbean
Industry: Automotive and
industrial manufacturing
Partner: Huddle Group
Customer Profile
The BMW Group manufactures and
sells high-quality automobiles and
motorcycles under the BMW, MINI,
and Rolls-Royce brands. BMW sells
more than 1.5 million units a year
worldwide.
Software and Services
Windows Azure
Windows Azure
Business
Needs
Microsoft
SQL Database
The
Microsoft
Dynamics
BMW Group
is a global leader in
automotive
Microsoft Dynamics
4.0
the
industry.CRM
It has
built an
international reputation for quality
with its BMW, MINI, and Rolls-Royce
brands, and the company sells more
than 1.5 million automobiles and
motorcycles a year. BMW operations in
Latin America and the Caribbean are
organized in 25 countries across the
Western Hemisphere.
In 2011, BMW Latin America had to
promote the launch of two new lines in
Microsoft customer successes,
the BMW 1 Series of automobiles, and
please visit:
it
wanted to kick off a marketing
www.microsoft.com/casestudies
campaign through the Facebook social
network. Its target audience matched

By using Windows Azure to make audience data available

in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, we enhanced the business
continuity of our marketing campaign and developed more
than 900 new sales prospects.
Beata Bujalska, E-Marketing Analyst, BMW Latin America

When BMW Latin America had to promote the launch of

two new model lines, it wanted to kick off an interactive
marketing campaign through the Facebook social
network that would support the launch and collect
audience data. BMW used Windows Azure to support a
solution that integrated the Facebook promotion with its
internal Microsoft Dynamics CRM environment, engaged
90,000 consumers, and converted 900 campaign
participants into sales prospects.
the profile of typical Facebook users,
and the company recognized that a
compelling campaign could reach
many people very quickly. By using
an interactive social media channel,
BMW could also collect information
about the campaign audience, such
as age, gender, career, and
education. We wanted to build an
innovative, interactive social media
campaign that would promote the
launch, drive interest in the product
features, and collect audience data,
says Beata Bujalska, eMarketing
Analyst at BMW Latin America.
BMW generally supports marketing
initiatives with corporate resources,

but it did not have a corporate

program that took advantage of
social networking for this model. To
promote and support the new model
launches on Facebook, BMW Latin
America needed to quickly develop
its own dynamic solution.
The company wanted to deliver
content and collect user data through
the Facebook interface but manage
the solution through its own back-end
interface, integrated with its in-house
customer relationship management
(CRM) system. It needed a solution
that it could scale up and down easily
to meet any demand, but that would
not require a large IT investment. It

was only a three-month campaign,

and our first campaign on Facebook
for the region, says Bujalska. We
did not know how big our audience
would be.

Solution
BMW wanted to build a solution
using cloud computing resources
delivered as services over the
Internet. The company used a
solution called the HG Social
Marketing Accelerator, developed by
the Huddle Groupa member of the
Microsoft Partner Networkand built
in Windows Azure, the Microsoft
cloud services development,
hosting, and management
environment.
BMW worked with Huddle Group to
launch an interactive promotion on
Facebook in the last quarter of
2011. Consumers could visit the
Facebook pagewithout having to
sign in to Facebookto evaluate
different option packages for the
new BMW 1 Series and complete a
form to receive information, photos,
and videos featuring the vehicles.
To present the promotion on
Facebook but host and manage the
content in the social marketing
accelerator, BMW used web roles in
Windows Azure to connect to
Facebook and insert content
displayed in either Spanish or
Englishinto the Facebook

interface. The user data was stored

in the Microsoft SQL Database and
delivered through Windows Azure
worker roles to the companys onpremises Microsoft Dynamics CRM
4.0 environment and its call center,
where service and marketing staff
verified the information and
prequalified contacts.

Benefits
BMW Latin America used Windows
Azure to build a flexible solution
that it could scale dynamically to
engage 90,000 consumers in two
months and convert 900 campaign
participants into prequalified sales
prospects. The company reached
10 markets in two languages,
without making a large
infrastructure investment or relying
on corporate support.

Scale dynamically. While consumer

participation in the campaign and
computing demand on the solution varied
from market to market, BMW could scale
up its Windows Azure resources where
and when it needed them. With
Windows Azure, we could give BMW the
agility to assign resources dynamically,
as and where consumer participation in
their social marketing campaign grew,
says Fernando Perez, BMW Account
Manager at Huddle Group.
In two months, more than 90,000 people
participated in the Facebook promotion,
and by connecting the user information to
its internal CRM system, BMW
converted more than 900 campaign
participants into prequalified leads and
legitimate sales prospects. By using

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN
THIS SUMMARY.
Document published July 2012

Windows Azure to make audience data

available in Microsoft Dynamics CRM,
we enhanced the business continuity of
our marketing campaign and developed
more than 900 new sales prospects, says
Bujalska.
Reach multiple markets. BMW ran the
Facebook campaign in 10 markets,
coordinated with local launch events, and
successfully supported the launch of two
new model lines throughout Latin
America and the Caribbean. The
company managed a single online
promotion for Spanish-speaking markets
in Latin America and English-speaking
Caribbean markets, and it helped
complete the marketing cycle by
connecting its cloud-based social
marketing campaign with its on-premises
Microsoft Dynamics CRM environment.

Reduce infrastructure costs. BMW

delivered the campaign through the
popular Facebook interface while it kept
costs down and maintained a high level of
administrative control and autonomy.
With the vast capacity in Windows Azure,
BMW had the flexibility to enhance or
shrink its processing resources without
having to invest in excess capacity or pay
for unused resources. The Windows
Azure subscription and pricing model is
more flexible and costs BMW two-thirds
less than traditional server hosting, says
Perez.
By using Windows Azure, BMW Latin
America deployed a social marketing
solution without having to rely on
corporate support or make a large
infrastructure investment. We used
Windows Azure to independently
implement a dynamic and innovative
marketing solution, without needing any
resources from our corporate offices in
Germany, says Bujalska. Instead of
waiting half a year, we had a solution in
two months.