Welcoming Lil Miquela into Our World • How BMW Accelerates Innovation in Automotive Marketing

People tend to perceive automotive marketing as traditional, lacking novelty and the ability to connect with younger, tech-savvy audiences. Known for its innovative spirit, BMW launched its new all-electric and highly digital iX2 model. With the rise of AI, the metaverse and Web3, we saw a unique opportunity to bridge the gap between the physical and the digital: by letting the iconic virtual influencer Lil Miquela take the wheel and find her way into our world, bringing along her social audience of more than 8.2 million people.

As part of The Marcom Engine, our creative team collaborated with BWGTBLD’s critically acclaimed director Stefanie Soho to capture an emotional story for the “Make it Real” campaign. The result: a bold and beautiful hero film with an unusual existential tone. Both serious and endearing, it shows Lil Miquela breaking into the real world with the new BMW iX2 and slowly but surely falling in love with human life—which ties it back to the brand vision of Freude Forever, which revolves around the joy of driving. The campaign is all about showcasing the diversity of physical existence through the eyes of virtual character, with the aim to fuel the message that reality isn’t a limitation, but a powerful canvas for rebellious spirits to drive progress.

Harnessing the power of AI, we leveraged state-of-the-art tools and technologies to elevate traditional automotive storytelling. The story of Lil Miquela stepping out of the Metaverse to experience the real world is a truly touching poetic journey. To ensure the nuanced performance was translated perfectly, we made an early decision to use AI face replacement instead of CGI animated heads. This allowed the director, Stefanie Soho, to freely work her magic without any camera restrictions or losing the enchantment of her filmmaking.

By traveling around in BMW’s all-electric iX2 car, Lil Miquela gets to explore the full range of human emotions and experience at a high speed—an electrifying visual that has gained momentum ever since the release of the film, as it cleverly merges physical and virtual realms by tapping into pop culture. And so, once again, BMW stands out as a brand that disrupts traditional automotive marketing while preserving human-focused storytelling.