President & Co-Chief Creative Officer
Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners (kbs+)
Ask Ed Brojerdi about an innovative business solution for which he’s most proud, and he’ll immediate say “electric cars.” In fact, he admits that the kbs+ marketing launch of the first Electric Vehicle for BMW has been the highlight of his career. “A revolutionary product was combined with a very non-traditional marketing approach-- no paid media, no TV, no print, no radio. Also, the cars sold out within the first few days even though they’re wouldn’t be available until late 2013!”
In fact, the BMW i “Window Into the Near Future” made headlines as a computer projection and augmented reality installation that transforms today’s real-time traffic into the near future, by replacing today’s cars with BMW electric i3 and i8 models.
“We wanted to show the world what the cars of tomorrow would look like on the roads of today, and that's what we literally did.” With digital projection, motion detection technology, 80,000 lumens, 3 cameras, and 1 intelligent car tracking application, live traffic along New York’s Avenue of the Americas was transformed into BMW electric vehicles streaming along Bryant Park. In a single week, the installation transformed 248,368 current cars into new electric models.
So how would Ed Brojerdi characterize innovation? “By the response received to the work. I love when I see the realization that people have just witnessed something new, something that came out of left field and is not at all what was expected-- something that has just changed the rules to the game.” BMW’s "Window into the Near Future" meets his criteria.
There’s no question that Ed is an avid technologist. He began his career at McCann Worldgroup, overseeing the global creative technology practice. Towards the end of his tenure at IPG, he became co-founder and COO of SPLIT, a creative technology business unit within Interpublic Group, before joining kbs+.
He’s also an internationalist at heart. Growing up, he and his family lived in several European countries, including Spain, Portugal and Germany. “I'm a first generation American, so my up-bringing was infused with many local and international customs and traditions. To this day, it helps me have a multi-dimensional approach to my creative thinking and how I manage a business holistically.”