Portfolio Brief
The thrill of a MINI in your pocket
Client
MINI Financial Services
Role
Lead Product Designer
Contribution
HTML Email, IA, Marketing Website, Project Management, UX
Created and managed a special offering of custom ringtones exclusively for MINI Financial Services customers made from the sounds of vehicles they owned and loved.
Ringtones featuring sounds from MINI vehicles with custom visualizations
The Product
Hand-crafted ringtones made from the sounds of MINI vehicles exclusively for Financial Services customers
While working with both BMW Financial Services and MINI Financial Services on a variety of marketing projects, our agency was asked to come up with something creative to offer customers that would fit their motoring lifestyles. After some brainstorming, our team landed on custom smart phone ringtones that would be based on real-life recordings of actual MINI vehicles done by one of our own audio specialists.
Landing page for ringtones offered by MINI Financial Services
The Problem
How do we bring the excitement of driving a MINI to a ringtone?
While one group headed to an offsite location to capture sounds of MINI doors, windows, and engine revs, I led the creative team that would be building and marketing the MINI FS Ringtones offering. Our biggest challenge was making ringtones for your phone as exciting as driving a Cooper S, so we collaborated with the motion graphics team on this project to bring audio visualizations in tune with MINI styling to each of the ringtones in order to really connect with customers.
We leveled up the ringtones with custom visualizations in a MINI style
Beyond the 5 pre-mixed offerings, we offered customers the option to create their own custom ringtones using any 4 of the available 7 MINI sounds to bring an extra bit of personalization to this project. Each sound offered a preview, and when 4 were selected, customers could listen to their ringtone and then either download it or email it to themselves.
The custom ringtone Maker is Simple yet fun to use
The Outcome
MINI owners found joy and connected with both their vehicles and their lenders
Unlike most interactions with MINI Financial Services, this wasn't about the cost or savings around MINI vehicles. This ringtones project was about connecting with their customers and bringing them joy, showing them that there were actual humans behind the organization that cared.
The interactive landing page and ringtone customizer was not only a hit with customers, but they were happy to actually download and install these ringtones on their phones. Our analytics showed clicks and downloads, but the client also shared stories from happy customers, which was a win across the board.
We took things a step further and crafted HTML email templates for MINI Financial Services to use for promotional communication, including personalized customer birthday emails that featured one of the pre-mixed ringtones.
Sample of the HTML Email template created for this ringtones project
Increasing the breadth of the agency's services
After a successful launch, the Financial Services side of BMW & MINI was not only thrilled with our offering, but it opened up other opportunities for us to work with them. They didn't just think of us for email campaigns and landing pages anymore, we showed we were capable of being creative and innovative.
TLDR;
Created connection and personalization for Financial Services customers and MINI enthusiasts
As the Lead Product Designer directing and creating assets for the MINI FS Ringtones project, I was able to:
Add value to the MINI Financial Services brand by helping them connect with their customers
Rally multiple teams together with the goal of delivering an exceptional experience that would delight our users
Reach over 500 ringtone downloads/emails in our first month
Convince the client that our agency was more than just a marketing communications team and garnered interest in working together on other projects