Celebrating legacy, preparing for the future

MINI UK Retailer Website Rebuild

MINI’s existing retailer website was beginning to show its age, and its existing CMS was falling behind. Rather than continuing to modify the old website, we decided we needed a complete overhaul to create a modern, futureproofed experience.

We had to create a user experience that lived up to the iconic MINI brand, whilst maximising the performance of the site for its three key audiences: MINI customers, MINI retailers and the central brand.

Our customer research kept leading us back to the moments in popular culture that gave MINI the status it still has today. One of the words that kept popping up was ‘playful’. With that in mind, we held an office screening of The Italian Job, then dusted off our old PlayStations in search of the style and experience that would encapsulate that spirit.

Once we’d got to grips with that, we focussed on the grown-up bits. We utilised a modern CMS system that is easy to use, update and duplicate – all of which was of fundamental importance to our retailers.

As well as being efficient and easy-to-use for retailers, the new site led to more test drive bookings and finance quote requests for new customers, whilst increasing engagement and conversion for existing MINI owners.

Understanding what motivates: Human Drivers

Consumers: When conducting our consumer research, we wanted to get to the heart of what MINI means to its admirers. It became immediately clear that the cars’ unique history of being front and centre in celebrated pop culture moments held the key to why so many people are devoted to the brand today.

With that in mind, we had no choice but to revisit some old classics. We watched The Italian Job and were struck by how the range of colours and playful brand identity were so central to the film’s essence.

Maybe this explains why so many MINI lovers were so invested in the idea of personalisation. Compared other car owners, there is consistent got that MINI enthusiasts embraced the idea of using the MINI design as a canvas to express their specific tastes, as well as customising the models to meet their requirements.

Retailers: For MINI retailers, their motivations were less abstract. To them, what was most important was having a system that is easy to use. First and foremost, we needed to create a site that where they could efficiently manage requests and quickly create, update and duplicate content.

Creating ideas that inspire action: Effective Creativity

In the process of trying to get to grips with the playfulness of the MINI, we not only played The Italian Job PlayStation game, but also Gran Turismo and Forza in search of inspiration.

In these sessions, we struck upon a digital experience that offered the perfect expression of the brand, whilst also offering users a tight, clean and intuitive way to browse and compare.

When playing these games, sometimes the most fun part is choosing and customising the cars before you use them. We fell in love with the joy and simplicity of the navigation and set about applying the same ideals. On our new website, the hero in the experience became the selection process.

We didn’t look to drive people down the page to further page to complete a certain task, we wanted the focus to be on the cars themselves. Because there are only 8 MINI models, it enabled us to use the screen’s real estate an effective way.

We constructed the design so that background of the screen matched the colour of car the user scrolls, meaning a vibrant visual identity that matches the MINI brand, whilst also enabling quick and clear comparisons of the growing range.

Results

Ultimately, these implementations have led to a web experience that works exactly as it should for our three types of users.

Consumers have an easy to use, visually engaging platform that lives up to the MINI brand.
Retailers have a simple, customisable base to work from. This has seen engagement increase, with 86% using the system on a regular basis. In particular, the bigger groups with more retailers were much more likely to update their site compared to the previous iteration.
The MINI brand are able to easily view all changes that are made, and they have an easy to update site, that will be easy to modify and build upon for many years to come.

Most importantly of all, since the new website has gone live we’ve seen big increases in revenue-driving activity:

Leads in first quarter since launch have increase 66.4% vs the same period last year
We’ve also seen excellent growth in lead conversion rate (leads/visits), with a 69.4% increase
This was driven by a huge increase in service online bookings – including test drive bookings – which were up have increased by 130%.

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