Just after I wrote the article about the Ogilvy Marketing Innovation Lab, I had the chance to visit BMW headquarters in Munich, Germany.

The Ogilvy team had shown me an interactive table from Microsoft, called “Surface” that could be used for marketing purposes. In Munich, I had a chance to see just exactly how BMW is planning on using these tables as part of their sales process.

The table basically acts as an interactive brochure and configurator, and allows a customer to customize their car, see what it would look like in various exterior colors and with various interiors, make product comparisons, etc. All of this is done using a multi-touch screen that is built into the top of a table.

Special tokens are placed on the table to indicate car color, wheel rims, interior materials, etc. Customers can then store on a USB stick all the information they have seen, including the videos.

As Franz Wimmer of BMW explained, it is like you make a customized catalogue for that individual person.

To give you a better idea of how this works, here is a video where Franz is showing the table in action.

I know that people may say “that is not really mobile marketing”, and they are right. But you have to believe that when digital media is brought into the sales process this deeply, it is only a matter of time before a mobile component is developed.

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