BMW Group – Ape Car Experience

At ApeFest 2023 in Hong Kong, initiated by the Bored Apes Yacht Club, we aim to emphasise that BMW’s experiential involvement bridges the gap between the physical experience and the digital lifestyle of the Bored Apes community.

BMW x BAYC

The Bored Apes Yacht Club is a very special worldwide community that BMW wanted to get into contact with. In order to make credible contact with this community on an equal footing, we decided to create an experience that appreciates and celebrates the core of this community: the Apes themselves, which are both collector's items and objects of identification.
That's why we created and designed a projection mapping installation in which only Ape holders could have their Ape immortalised on a BMW.

Our common idea was to create an appearance for BMW that is not about a brand imposing itself on a community. It was about engaging with the BAYC community sincerely and on eye-level.

Community Artwork

It was clear from the start that we had to honour the visual language of the ape community. So we developed the idea that the resulting car design should look like "sticker-bombed" with the apes. The brilliant bright projection on the BMW i5 in front of the Hong Kong skyline became a mesmerising image. To show even more appreciation to individual Ape Holders, each moment starts with an animation of their own Ape taking over the entire vehicle. This gives the Ape Holder the opportunity to capture this unique moment on film or photographically with their smartphone. Only then does the respective Ape join the others.

User Experience

Users log in with their Tokenproof app, which enables the apes that the user owns to be displayed immediately and securely in our application. After selecting one of the apes, the experience can be customised with additional design elements. After the projection and the experience, users receive a Proof of Attendance Protocol (POAP) sent to their blockchain wallet, which is a secure proof of participation. Participants can still be reached via the POAPs after the event, which makes them a small, very exclusive target group that is highly interesting for the brand. The BMW Ape Car experience is one of the first of its kind in the Web3 space.

Team Credits:

Creative Direction – Andreas Schimmelpfennig
Art Direction – Cuong Le
Project Management – Anastasia Pashinskaya
Elastique Production Team –
René Kauka, David Le, Celine Graf, Peter Pannes, Bennet Meyer, Henning Ramke
Music & Sound Design – Maximilian Boss

Partners:
Creative Direction & Exhibition Design –
THE Game
Carsten Röhr, Thilo Baumgärtner, Stijn Jonckheere, Dario Bellusci, Orhan Olgar, Florian Gmeinwieser, Julia De Haney

Software Development – Grosse8
Gerrit Kress, Stephan Müller, Maxim Aks, Finn Jacobsen, Benita Martis, Jesper Schaerrer, Lutz Rief, Lisa Afrossin

Projection Operator – Pixway
Paul Meffert, Nevil Jeremias, Ron Lindenau

Awards

User Experience Mixed Media

1x Bronze

Communication Campaigns Advertising