How BMW learned the best product placement is a true story

On Saturday, ABC’s “20/20: In an Instant” featured the true story of a car accident involving a BMW sedan and an 18-wheel tractor-trailer rig.It was so horrific as to be almost unimaginable.But BMW’s marketing executives should be thrilled.That sounds counterintuitive. After all, what automaker would want their car featured as a mangled pile of metal in a real-life story about a fatal accident?But in this case, the show’s repeated mention of the “small BMW” sedan delivered an endorsement of the highest degree.In 2012, then-36-year-old Kelli Groves was driving north on California’s 101 Freeway about 40 miles north of Santa Barbara.Groves had borrowed her sister’s 2001 dark blue BMW to take her 10-year-old and 10-month-old daughters on a trip. Groves’ sister affectionately called her BMW “Old Blue.” Much of the conversation throughout the program centered around “Old Blue.” Groves’ sister even warned her to not open a back window because it sticks.Midway through the trip, Groves was passing a northbound tractor-trailer rig when the driver, Charles Arthur Allison, 48, high on methamphetamines, crashed into Groves. The 18-wheel rig and trailer drove over the top of the BMW and over the side of a bridge, falling 100 feet and bursting into flames in a creek bed below. He was killed.The crushed and mangled BMW dangled off the edge of the bridge, with Groves and her daughters trapped inside. They were alive but injured and terrified the car would fall at any minute into the fire 100 feet below.It took rescuers 2 hours and 21 minutes to rescue Groves and her two daughters in what was a daring feat.'Built like a tank'A real-life rescuer explained one reason for the lengthy and challenging rescue was that the car was “built like a tank,” thus hard to cut through. But its brute strength and engineering protected the occupants and withstood the pressure of a semi driving over its top.Those telling the story did not name the model, only referred to it as a “small BMW.”“Many BMW customers have written and told us about horrendous accidents in which it appeared that no one could have survived and yet they did because of their BMW,” company spokesman Kenn Sparks said.This was no intentional product placement. It was a true story.Saving livesBut watching the broadcast, I admit, I wished I owned a BMW. I felt proud for the engineers who made that car. Near the end, after Groves and her daughters had successfully healed, she told a spine-tingling story.Her sister had bought the car used. Even so, their father had been outraged at the high price, saying he “wouldn’t pay that much for a house,” Groves recalled with a chuckle. But her sister told him, “Dad, someday this car is going to save my life.”Groves paused and then said: “That car saved three lives.”That’s a product endorsement no amount of money could ever buy.

How BMW learned the best product placement is a true story

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