Rewarded for the courage to take risks
Supporting the Next Generation: BMW Let Students Design Its Employee Magazine—With Great Success.
Promoting young talent BMW had students design the employee magazine. With great success. Employee magazines don't have to be filled with internal information or product news every month. The July issue of BMW's employee magazine Teamwork proves this. In the summer issue, Oliver Aeschlimann's communications team shows the courage to experiment. Together with the Zurich University of the Arts, BMW embarked on the path of art. Students from the Visual Communication department put the car manufacturer in the picture on around 20 pages. Project manager Oliver Aeschlimann: "We wanted to use this to offer young people a platform and introduce our employees to new impressions, other views and people behind the products." For Aeschlimann, such input is important. The view from the outside comes up short during work, he says. The students' ideas were therefore very welcome.Artistic freedomOriginally, Aeschlimann planned to have the students design only the cover page. However, at the request of the lecturers, the assignment was changed. During the month-long project, the creative youngsters were allowed to fiddle around with the entire magazine. BMW was very open about the topics. The only guard rail was that the work had to have something to do with BMW, Mini or mobility. Oliver Aeschlimann admits to being a bit skeptical at first. He feared that the students would think too critically about BMW. But censoring or interfering with artistic creation was out of the question for BMW. Aeschlimann is pleased with the final result. "We included all the works in the booklet. The works are diverse and turned out well."
The collaboration with the university was not without remuneration. BMW compensated the students for their work, organized an exhibition and placed the project in the media. Aeschlimann: "We also want to use it to offer the young people a springboard into the professional world." And how did the Swiss BMW workforce react to the project? They responded very positively to the experiment. "The feedback was great. I've never received so much feedback since I started working at BMW," says Aeschlimann. His team and he are already incubating other concepts on how to use students and their ideas for BMW. "Currently, we're thinking about working with students again, but I can't say anything about specific projects yet."
Promoting young talent is close to the German car manufacturer's heart. For example, BMW supports young filmmakers at many small festivals and regularly awards various prizes for film and design. Incidentally, all the works of the students of the Zurich University of the Arts can be seen at the BMW headquarters in Dielsdorf. The employee magazine Teamwork is published monthly and has a circulation of 550 copies.
Christian Lüscher
The collaboration with the university was not without remuneration. BMW compensated the students for their work, organized an exhibition and placed the project in the media. Aeschlimann: "We also want to use it to offer the young people a springboard into the professional world." And how did the Swiss BMW workforce react to the project? They responded very positively to the experiment. "The feedback was great. I've never received so much feedback since I started working at BMW," says Aeschlimann. His team and he are already incubating other concepts on how to use students and their ideas for BMW. "Currently, we're thinking about working with students again, but I can't say anything about specific projects yet."
Promoting young talent is close to the German car manufacturer's heart. For example, BMW supports young filmmakers at many small festivals and regularly awards various prizes for film and design. Incidentally, all the works of the students of the Zurich University of the Arts can be seen at the BMW headquarters in Dielsdorf. The employee magazine Teamwork is published monthly and has a circulation of 550 copies.
Christian Lüscher
