For some reason, MINI decided that it would be a clever marketing move to put their name on a cold snap which is currently plaguing most of Europe. They paid the paltry sum of €299 ($392) to whoever it is you pay to get a weather front named, and chose to call the cold front “Cooper”. The company also plan to name a warm front later this year “Minnie”. Don’t ask why.
Well it all started off as a nice little advertising gimmick. That is until temperatures unexpectedly plummeted earlier this week, especially in Poland and the Ukraine where temperatures of -33C (-27F) were recorded. The cold weather has affected almost every country in Europe, and killed at least 70 people across the continent due to hypothermia – not to mention hundreds hospitalized due to the cold and hazardous conditions outside.
Speaking to the UK newspaper The Independent, a MINI spokeswoman commented on the affects of Cooper: “Of course we are sorry. It was not intentional, you cannot tell in advance what a weather system will do.”
Cooper’s lethality is clearly an embarrassment to Sassenbach, the Munich-based advertising agency BMW hired to promote the MINI Cooper. The agency said that it had decided on weather sponsorship because it wanted a “wind and weatherproof idea”. As of yesterday they were refusing to comment on the issue.
Source: The Independent
