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BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

thedrive.com

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Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#131

Post by avianlyric »

tyingq wrote: post #41
floatingatoll wrote: post #24

Either BMW changed their mind or overstated what they’re doing, because they are on-record contradicting this story: https://www.motoringresearch.com/car-news/bmw-targeted-warra... BMW has told Motoring Research its targeted billboard warranty adverts – which are claimed to use number plate registration technology to tailor public adverts to BMW drivers – do not actually draw upon vehicle warranty status. Rather, onl…

That sounds like a weasel word version of "we can detect vehicle warranty status without using PII."

You can probably guess without using PII. In the UK numberplate info is public, you can look up the make, model year and colour of a car just using it's numberplate, and anyone can do this.

Using that info it would be trivial to detect a BMW car that was older than X years old. Where X is number of years the normal non-extended warranty is. You then just assume that any car older than the non-extended warranty doesn't have an extended warranty and display the advert.

Then the only thing the advert would be giving away is that there is a BMW nearby that older than X years. Which anyone with a pair of eyes could figure out because the numbers of UK numberplates encode the issue year (thus the age of the car), and well, BMW's are pretty easy to identify just by looking at them.

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#132

Post by chiph »

offtop5 wrote: post #38

Last time I brought a used car ( from a dealership) , and was immediately inundated with dozens of extended warranty sales calls. I can't imagine this will be anything positive. Give it a decade and other advertisers will open the gate. File for divorce and dating ads will spam you at an intersection.

The extended warranty folks are getting vehicle registration data from the DMV. Although, I wouldn't put it past a dealer to open a new revenue stream selling customer data too.

(I'm still getting "Your warranty will expire soon!" calls for a 16 year old SUV...)

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#133

Post by chrisseaton »

tomp wrote: post #80
adav wrote: post #57

I used to really like BMWs but they have lost their way in my opinion. Front wheel drive models, charging a subscription for Apple CarPlay, that 4-series grill, increasingly horrific customer service at dealers and foregoing their position as the market leader in handling and dynamics really rub me up the wrong way.

> charging a subscription for Apple CarPlay Well that's a scam if there ever was one. Who wants a subscription for basic functionality in a car? Might as well buy an iPad and solder it over BMW's control panel.

> Who wants a subscription for basic functionality in a car?

I don't get this fundamental objection.

It's just a different way to pay. Either you pay up-front or you pay a subscription. Work out the total cost of ownership (you'll need to estimate how long you likely keep the car either way.) Now take that final figure and either it's worth it to you or it isn't. How that final figure gets paid doesn't seem like a big deal?

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#134

Post by markus_zhang »

durnygbur wrote: post #14

I remember reading an interview with BMW designer that the obnoxiously huge front grills are a nod to the Chinese customers. Chinese customers wanted the drivers in front of them to feel intimidated, as if the car and driver behind wanted to eat them. Other premium brands like Lexus followed with this trend.

Please send me the address of that interview and I'll post it on Weibo and see how the Chinese react to it...

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#135

Post by corty »

samizdis wrote: post #23
throwbacktictac wrote: post #5

What echo chamber was the guy/gal behind this living in? Nothing about this sounds like a good idea to increase the value of the brand.

I couldn't agree more. It's a shame, too, because BMW used to run some slick ads and seemed to have a sense of humour. In the mid- to late-90s I worked at an online newspaper and BMW ran banner ads on April 1 for a few years, touting fake features such as laser zappers to keep flies off your windscreen etc. Not sure which ad agency they use now, but this live billboard thing is just damaging to the brand. Creepy, too…

Creepy, but in line with what the car itself phones home. If you thought Tesla was invasive in its remote control and surveilance, BMW is hell-bent on surpassing them.

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#136

Post by markus_zhang »

xwdv wrote: post #48
durnygbur wrote: post #14

I remember reading an interview with BMW designer that the obnoxiously huge front grills are a nod to the Chinese customers. Chinese customers wanted the drivers in front of them to feel intimidated, as if the car and driver behind wanted to eat them. Other premium brands like Lexus followed with this trend.

I’m tired of trashy Chinese tastes gaining so much influence in the world.

So basically everything is Chinese' fault, oh how important we are...

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#137

Post by seppel »

jamescun wrote: post #6

Would this not be misuse of PII? You own a particular vehicle registration mark as much as you own a particular phone number, and both can reasonably be used to identify an individual (motor database verus telephone database).

Why does BMW even store the license plate? Is the warranty tied to a license plate? And if so, why?

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#138

Post by avianlyric »

gambiting wrote: post #46
floatingatoll wrote: post #24

Either BMW changed their mind or overstated what they’re doing, because they are on-record contradicting this story: https://www.motoringresearch.com/car-news/bmw-targeted-warra... BMW has told Motoring Research its targeted billboard warranty adverts – which are claimed to use number plate registration technology to tailor public adverts to BMW drivers – do not actually draw upon vehicle warranty status. Rather, onl…

As I just said in another comment - they can figure it out without any private information. Licence plates are public and they are allowed to scan one with a camera, and they provide warranty on all BMW cars, so they know(and have the right to know) if a specific car is covered by them or not. They have all the iformation they need.

You're not wrong about them in theory having all the data they need to identify out of warranty cars. But if they are legitimately identifying out of warranty cars (I suspect they're not), then that doesn't give them the right to publicly broadcast the information to the wider world. Which I suspect is the crux of this issue.

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#139

Post by mattlondon »

durnygbur wrote: post #14

I remember reading an interview with BMW designer that the obnoxiously huge front grills are a nod to the Chinese customers. Chinese customers wanted the drivers in front of them to feel intimidated, as if the car and driver behind wanted to eat them. Other premium brands like Lexus followed with this trend.

I've never understood this intimidation strategy/mentality. "ooh big/mean/fast/close car behind me - I had better speed up/get out of the way or..." or what, precisely?

Ram me off of the road? Crash into the back of me? Try and eat me?

I don't know what things are like in China, but there is a saying in the UK: "all mouth and no trousers".

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#140

Post by gambiting »

astura wrote: post #129
gambiting wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but then I'm genuienly curious - which laws are being broken? Licence plates in the UK can be scanned by automated machines owned by private companies, that's been established many times before. To request the owner data from the DVLA you need their permission - but that's not necessary here, BMW doesn't need to know anything about the owner, so no such request would be made to the DVLA. Then on the other side, t…

>nothing about owners, none of the silo'ed personal information needs to be accessed at all I mean, they probably don't even have that information for half the cars they scan because the warranty belongs to the car, not the person who bought the car. The warranty is transferred to the new owner if someone sells the car. They will not know the owner of all private used sales and used sales through 3rd party dealers.

But...why does that matter? They know if a car with licence plate "GH13 JFG" is covered under warranty or not, because they know when they sold it. It doesn't matter if since then it got sold several times. I suppose it won't work any more if you put a custom plate on the car, but if you kept the one it was originally registered with then yeah, it doesn't matter if it's second hand or not.
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