The 2010s were a big decade for BMW that saw some major firsts — like the first fully electric models to come to market — and the 100th anniversary of the company’s founding. Over these last 10 years, the German automaker also produced a lot of ads — a few of which stood out more than others.
Here is our roundup of the 15 best BMW commercials of the decade.
15. Are We There Yet?
This ad from 2019 is a look back through time at some of the highlights of BMW, like the first electric version, the M1 and the company’s 2014 design for the U.S. bobsledding team. The commercial also looks to the future and drops some visuals of what to expect in the next decade.
14. BMW X5: The Back-Backseat Driver
This humorous ad from BMW is all about the X5, an SUV big enough to fit both backseat drivers and back-backseat drivers — like the grandmother featured in the commercial, who tells slightly exaggerated stories about her past.
13. The Destination
One of the many BMW ads to play on memory and nostalgia, this commercial — created for the 2017 Road Home sales event — shows the kinds of memories you can make in a BMW, or, how it’s not all about the destination.
12. Like New Again
Many of BMW’s ads toward the end of the decade had the company looking backward for inspiration. One of the best examples of this is the ads from the Like New Again campaign. It riffed off of six years’ worth of BMW commercials and ads — TV spots, radio ads and flyers — to promote certified preowned BMWs.
The campaign was clever, but maybe a little too self-aware for its own good.
11. Mini 2016 Super Bowl Spot
This Super Bowl Spot, the last we’ve seen so far from BMW, promotes the label-defying Mini. The ad is probably best remembered for its interesting celebrity lineup, which included appearances from Serena Williams, T-Pain, Harvey Keitel and Tony Hawk.
10. BMW i3: Newfangled Idea
Another ad playing off the newness of electric vehicles, this Super Bowl Spot from 2015 brought together former “Today” show hosts Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel. They compared the launch of EVs to other new ideas, like the internet back in the ‘90s, with the tagline, “big ideas take a little getting used to.”
9. BMW and Spotify Collab
In 2019, BMW teamed up with Spotify to curate the perfect BMW-themed driving playlists. All in all, the company put together enough music to back 85 hours of driving. The collaboration also included unique, in-app visuals from New Zealand artists designed to be paired with the music.
8. This BMW Drunk Driving PSA
This print PSA from BMW about drunk driving created a lot of buzz, for better or worse, and briefly reignited the conversation around social drinking and drunk driving.
7. BMW i: Drive the Future
One of the biggest developments of the past decade was the rise and regular advertisement of electric vehicles. This ad, from late 2018, uses slick, glossy visuals and a sophisticated voice-over to associate BMW’s line of hybrids and all-electric vehicles with the future.
6. BMW Accelerate
This bold print ad campaign from BMW South Africa takes full advantage of some gorgeous wide shots to show the kind of distance you can cover with a BMW S 1000 RR motorcycle. This bike accelerates from 0 to 100 in just three seconds.
5. BMW’s Crying Billboard
This innovative ad uses a unique billboard design that captures rain and causes the face on the advertisement to start crying. It may be a bit of a stretch to call the billboard effective — it’s not exactly clear what’s being advertised, other than BMW — but it is certainly different.
4. BMW’s Night Vision Billboards
This spot is definitely the highest-tech ad on the list, and possibly one of the highest-tech campaigns you’ve probably ever seen.
BMW wanted to reduce the number of crashes caused by wildlife on remote Austrian roads. It designed a night-vision billboard, based on the same tech used by its cars’ night-vision cameras, to help drivers spot deer planning to cross the highway.
According to BMW, not a single crash happened while the boards were up.
3. Retrospect
To celebrate the company’s 100th anniversary, BMW commissioned this nostalgic ad about the past — and how, as it says, “Memories never age.”
2. BMW X7: Legend
This spot, one of the last few of the decade, used lush storybook and fantasy visuals to show off the X7, BMW’s 2019 full-size luxury SUV. It’s probably the most dense and complicated BMW ad of the 2010s, and one of the brand’s few ads to rely heavily on CGI.
1. The Small Escape
The Small Escape was one of the last BMW ads of the decade and almost certainly the most cinematic. The commercial, which is better described as a short film, is a dramatized retelling of escape from East to West Berlin using a classic 1955 BMW Isetta — a 13-horsepower car that could barely seat two passengers.
The short film also hooked into a larger ad campaign, including an article that tells the full story of the escape.
Rounding up BMW’s Best Ads From the 2010s
The last decade has been big for BMW. Over the past 10 years, the company used most of its advertising to look back to the company’s past but also to look forward to new technology, like electric vehicles.
Now, there’s no telling where the brand will go in the 2020s. If they’re anything like the 2010s, though, BMW will be looking for ways to advertise both its history and its future.