MINI Boosts Buying Intent with Custom Audio

Behind MINI’s iconic stripes is an auto brand with over 60 years of history rooted in racing, individuality, and adventure.

MINI has appealed to a wide variety of drivers over the years, but at its core, the brand believes in both uniqueness and community. While the brand is no stranger to the power of audio marketing, custom audio from NPR sponsorship helped MINI level up their campaign to showcase their spunk and personality.

Goal

MINI aimed to build brand awareness around their belief in the power of community. Or in MINI’s words, “Behind the wheel of a MINI, we may all be different, but we’re better together.”

Solution

To tell MINI’s unique stories, the campaign featured Product Inspiration Mid-rolls. NPM Creative, National Public Media’s in-house creative agency, teamed up with MINI to produce 60-second custom audio creative to share stories from the MINI community. The campaign also included a Custom Channel, a curated set of audio stories that align with a brand’s values, and display placements. 

With MINI’s focus on building community and positivity, the NPR Sponsorship team selected shows that stood out for their positive spirit and active, engaged followings. Shows like Pop Culture Happy Hour, It’s Been a Minute, Life Kit, How I Built This, and Fresh Air were a natural fit. To elevate the custom creative one step further, MINI tailored some of their sponsorship messages to align with joyful recurring content segments of individual shows like “Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week” from It’s Been a Minute and “What’s Making Us Happy This Week” from Pop Culture Happy Hour.

Listen to the creative:

Results

MINI not only saw great lift in brand awareness, but also in positive opinion that translated into improved intent. NPR listeners love to learn, with 85% agreeing that wanting to explore and learn about new things is very important to them.¹ Paired with custom creative that gave listeners a taste of MINI’s personality, that interest applied to the sponsorship message, with 52% of the audience agreeing that they enjoyed learning most about “The many unique ways MINI owners can customize their vehicles.”² And 1 in 10 exposed listeners say that they’re likely to further research the brand — a 5x increase from the control group. This translated to a 0.5% conversion rate in website visits, exceeding Veritonic’s automotive benchmark of 0.4%.²

Interested in hearing more Product Inspiration Mid-rolls?

Listen now.

1. MRI-Simmons Doublebase 2020, among custom NPR News audience.
2. Veritonic, April 2021
3. NPR Listener Survey, May 2021