MINI John Cooper Works Countryman: The mad MINI marketing begins +video

MINI John Cooper Works Countryman with a man on the roof - Expect the Unexpected

With the debut of the MINI John Cooper Works Countryman at Geneva 2012, MINI starts its marketing with another off-beat video.

If there’s one things that’s a certainty in the world of MINI – apart from a new variant every four days – is that any new launch gets promoted with slightly bizarre videos. And the new MINI JCW Countryman is no exception.

Not as mad as the MINI Twins’ videos we had for the initial launch of the Roadster and Coupe, the video for the JCW Countryman is, nevertheless, not exactly a straightforward video of the new Countryman in action.

MINI has cobbled together a video of the JCW Countryman blatting across a desert landscape in all its be-striped glory – and across rocks and snow – with a man strapped to the roof. What’s the punch line? MINI say to ‘Expect the unexpected’, but by the time you get to the end of the video you probably won’t be too surprised at the outcome.

But the left-field take MINI has on marketing always means their offerings are more interesting than most, and they don’t take away from the fact that the JCW Countryman is a nippy compact SUV, with its 215bhp 4-pot turbo and a sub-7 second 0-60mph.

(21 photos – click any thumbnail for full gallery)

By Cars UK