BMW Magnetic Tow Technology - April fools or just a little fooish

As is becoming customary today saw a host of April fools gags in the press.. apparently The Guardian is ditching print and going to be exclusively available on Twitter and there are several fake stories in the Metro that people in the office are talking about this morning.

BMW decided that rather than missing out on the fun they would run the below ad and get into the spirit of things.



As it goes it works pretty well... it looks and feels very BMW and someone here mentioned seeing something similar talked about on Tomorrows World (and as far as i can remember that hasn't been on TV for at least 10+ years).

And i am sure that BMW's Head of Innovation, Herr Noitt All must be very proud and the inbox (mailto:uve.vollenvorit@bmw.co.uk) on ad is clearly going to be filled with gullible potential buyers wanting more info (i would love to see what responses they do get?)

But without sounding like a complete humbug the question that i found myself asking is whether or not, given the current financial gloom and general state of the car industry, it was a stoke of genius or a bit foolhardy.

I saw the ad in The Guardian this morning and only after i read an article on the cover of how Porsche's car sales are down by 27% (and they only made a decent amount of cash last year by acting like a hedge fund), then flicking on a few pages to the financial section you get to an article on how beleaguered General Motors is having to go through yet another round of restructuring to try and survive by offloading (or winding-up) the Hummer brand.

I'm no financial expert but I am guessing that if every other car manufacturer is hurting then BMW must be feeling the pinch too... begging the question whether running the ad was the right thing to do?

To be honest it probably is... it has talkability (hence me writing this post) and light hearted relief is something that I am sure we could all do with, it certainly beats riots and anti-capitalist protests.