Mom...?

A new campaign by the self-proclaimed "ultimate driving machine" asks that customers recall an instance they'd rather not remember.

The campaign, which includes interactive online components as well as banners, postcards, emails and print ads, seeks to promote the BMW-owned Performance Driving School in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

Relearn to Drive serves as both slogan and URL for the effort, which is designed to suggest a longtime car owner's knowledge of how to drive is badly executed or simply wrong. Toward this end, nine archetypes of drivers are illustrated to represent traditional drivers training instructors or parents: the people who originally taught - and currently teach - eager teens how to drive.

While taking humorous jabs at traditional driving instruction, Relearn to Drive is also positioned as a public service announcement of sorts, with minimal identification of BMW as the sponsor.

“An unbranded approach allows us more breathing room,” explained Manager Patrick McKenna of marketing communications at BMW of North America in Woodcliff Lake, NJ, in an interview with The New York Times.

“It’s just neat how these things really do happen virally,” he added, illustrating how the editor of an auto publication "stumbled upon" the homepage without realizing it was a BMW campaign.

In addition to the Relearn to Drive site, videos for the campaign are available on MySpace, YouTube and Joost.

The campaign also takes a few serious jabs - not just at driving instruction, but also at family dynamics. The archetypal stepfather character, for example, tells his student to consider, "What would Stepdaddy do to me if I brought his car back as a flaming pile of wreck?"

Associated print ads admonish, "No matter how many times your mom reminded you that 'Rick is a good man', it didn’t make him a good driving instructor.”

Speaking of "mom," BMW's version smokes a cigarette while dispensing wince-worthy advice.

GSD&M, Austin assisted in developing the campaign, whose budget sits comfortably between "the high five figures to the low six figures, typical for a nontraditional effort," according to The New York Times. The agency won the BMW account in late 2005.