Behind BMW's mock-ad
The German car maker took a new approach to selling its 1-series.
(CNN American Morning) -- When it comes to advertising on the Internet, industry experts say "funny" sells. Viral video ads are a relatively new market and in just a short time have managed to change the rules of traditional advertising.
"We're trying to experiment out there and do things that are interesting and engaging," said Reuben Hendell, CEO of MRM Worldwide.
That includes over the top humor and ads that masquerade as home videos. BMW recently went as far as making a 30-minute mockumentary about a fictional Bavarian town that comes up with a plan to catapult the latest BMW 1-series vehicle from Germany to the United States.
The goal is to create buzz and hopefully tap into new customers.
"We never target demographically. We always focus psycho-graphically," said Jack Pitney, vice president of Marketing at BMW North America. "It means what kind of mindset do we think this vehicle will really resonate with? In the end it could be an 18-year old and it could be an 80-year old. But if they share a similar mindset we think we have the right car for them."
BMW went to great lengths to keep the public guessing about whether there was any truth to the spot. They created Web sites for the made-up German town as well as one of the characters. Another character was given his own Facebook profile where he made 800 friends. It was months before BMW finally took ownership of the ad.
Industry experts say there's still a learning curve in how far they can take the joke. "If you get too quirky or a little too obtuse with what you're trying to say, people might just miss the whole idea," Hendell said.
Or you could end up scaring people - like a recent Internet ad that showed cell phones popping popcorn making people wonder if cell phones can be damaging to the brain. That ad like the BMW mockumentary was also a hoax.
In the end, BMW's audience got the joke. The company says it received 10 million hits as well as better than anticipated sales of the 1-series model featured in the viral video ad. 
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