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Interactive Billboards Run Personal Ads to MINI Drivers

Mini USA has launched an outdoor campaign that sees digital billboards flashing personalized messages to Mini drivers as they motor by.

Last week, Mini USA sent emails to select Mini owners inviting them to join a pilot version of a new program, called Motorby, according to Motoring File. The program asks Mini drivers to answer some basic information about themselves, then sends a special key fob to participants that identifies them to the billboards as they pass under them.

The boards detect the key fob as the driver passes by, and delivers a personal message based on the information originally given.

Currently, the campaign is running in four cities - Chicago, Miami, New York and San Francisco - but it will roll out to a wider audience later in 2007.

Mini USA has a history of creating campaigns geared toward the word-of-mouth factor. Last summer, for example, Mini ran encrypted ads in magazines such as The New Yorker and Maxim, and only Mini owners, who had been sent special glasses, could decode the ads.