• by Tanya Gazdik , April 16, 2025

Mini USA is launching a new campaign that takes a slightly irreverent tone, timed to coincide with the New York Auto Show. 

The out-of-home ads, including a plane towing a banner, are near the Javits Center, and use competitors' own taglines to remind consumers that driving should be fun. 

Created by Goodby Silverstein & Partners, creative leads within Mini USA’s wider interagency team, the billboards and out-of-home challenge “car people” –– auto show attendees working for other OEM car brands –– to ditch the boring convention and test drive a 3x Monte Carlo Champion instead.

In case the brand doesn’t intercept Auto Show attendees before they arrive at Javits, Mini has placed its message on Volta charging stations inside the convention center.

The campaign marks the first effort from the brand’s new head of marketing, Kate Alini, who started in October. She replaced longtime marketing chief, Patrick McKenna, who retired after 27 years. 

It is also the first larger campaign by GS&P as part of its broader creative strategy for the brand, according to a spokesperson.

“Mini is a brand that has always carved its own path,” says Alini, whose title is department head, marketing, product and strategy for Mini USA. “We’ve been the feisty underdog, taking on bigger brands with Brit-grit, humor, and most of all, fun. With this campaign we are taking a page out of the old Mini playbook and disrupting in ways that only Mini can.”

The morning before the show opens to the public on April 18, Mini will also run two full-page ads in The New York Times. One tells car enthusiasts to skip the static showroom floor and experience the thrill of test-driving a Mini for themselves. 

The other serves as the Mini Manifesto—a declaration to the rest of the world that Mini is not a car. It’s an unconventional street-legal go-kart with a British wit and rebellious spirit. 

In other parts of New York City, Mini will place “wild postings” speaking directly to each borough, inviting them to ditch conventions and drive a go-kart. 

The brand will also follow the “car people” back home, placing billboards outside the headquarters of the car brands whose taglines Mini used in the work -- Mercedes, Porsche and Jeep -- inviting their employees to “ditch work and book a test drive.”

“Mini is not a car, it’s a street legal Go-Kart, and we know the brand doesn’t show up in ways a traditional car brand would – like at an auto show,” says Mason Douglass, senior copywriter at GS&P. “Instead, we developed a creative approach that points out in a ‘Mini way’ that driving is more fun than looking at a bunch of static display cars.”