There are around 150,000 BMW drivers in China where the luxury automobile market is increasingly competitive. What to do with this large group of highly loyal customers? How to profit from their loyalty and engage more with them? These were questions that Edelman Digital, a marketing strategy firm, addressed and two weeks ago their solution was presented: myBMWclub.cn, a SNS where drivers can “connect, offer advice and share their experiences with the brand” said Zaheer Nooruddin, director of Edelman Digital during a sneak preview presentation.

Only BMW owners will be invited to join the exclusive SNS that was launched last Tuesday. According to an Edelman spokesman the network members will be able to “share tips and solve each others’ problems as a support network – it’s taking customer service to a new level past the traditional call center.” I think this assumption might be a bit naive as there are a few challenges. The question is whether the SNS will provide users with sufficient added value or incentives to become active. In other words will BMW owners – that I assume are not very tech savvy and older than the average Chinese netizen – have enough in common in order to make them feel like they share something, are proud to be part of the community and therefor willing participate and invest their valuable time? At first sight the scale of 150,000 and counting looks sufficient, but what about private drivers? It is common in China to have a private driver. So customer service through a SNS will be irrelevant for many BMW owners as they delegate the maintenance of their vehicle to their chauffeur.

Enough critique, the frontpage and screenhots look great, users can create their own profiles, upload images and even watch videos, whoop-de-whoo! No seriously it is a good initiative that might pay off, at least it creates some nice buzz around their brand name. Interestingly BMW has chosen to launch their service only in China while there are no similar initiatives in Europe or the U.S.