Mini’s PR backfires badly in central Europe

No doubt it seemed a jolly good idea at the time. Someone in Sassenbach, the advertising agency that handles the BMW Mini account spotted an oppportunity; the German meteorology institute offers ‘Adopt a Vortex’, the chance to name, or ‘sponsor’, weather systems and encourages people to follow the path of the weather on meteorological websites. So they decided to name a weather system ‘Cooper’, and according to the BBC report they thought that naming the front after the open-air vehicle was a “wind- and weather-proof idea”.

How could they know that their name would be given to this particular weather front which is so exceptionally cold, especially across central Europe? At least 100 people have died, mostly in Poland and Ukraine, leaving Mini with a lasting legacy which has led BMW to issue a statement saying that it deeply regretted that the weather front had taken on “catastrophic proportions” and claimed so many lives. Apparently they have also adopted a warm weather front for some time in the future, to be called ‘Minnie’; surely they will be trying to withdraw that now.

The German meteorology institute is the only one, apart from the US, which allows naming of weather fronts, and charges 229 Euros for the privilege. The money raised helps to fund weather monitoring at Berlin’s Free University and there are several slots still to be taken for 2012 - but perhaps they will be a little harder to sell at the moment.