These people seem to be fans of the novelty of the idea, not of BMW. Burning after-images into peoples retinas isn't some back door to their loyalty, anymore than flashing single frames of "DRINK COKE" make people thirst for cola.
Result I see so far from this commercial 1.) Wire has an article talking about BMW (and we're reading it) 2.) This is on HN already and will probably be on reddit/FB and other social site by tomorrow 3.) People will be talking about how innovative BMW's marketing is and associate that with their product 4.) Got me to sit here and watch the commercial with my full attention (last time I did that was checking out superbowl commercial the day after on youtube, and those cost them millions for the airtime) and want to experience the "real thing" afterward
Achieving any single one of these will make it a good marketing campaign, getting all 4 make this a GREAT marketing campaign.
which obviously doesn't mean that there's no such thing as subliminal stimuli, just this example technique is not true. here's a better one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyQjr1YL0zg and most of his tricks include sending signals to one's lower thresold level, no flashing anything between frames.
There are instances in the real world where this has been attempted (The Republican tv ad campaign a few years ago that flashed the word "RATS" when talking about the Democrats for instance), but there is little to no actual credible evidence to show this works. It's all little more than marketers wetdreams.
Plenty of experiments have been done on strobe flashing images and sets of images on a subject's eyes. The end result is, generally, that the psyche becomes upset and the person irritated - it's kind of like having a religious zealot push their ideas onto you; if you're set in other beliefs, the experience is only irritating (if not enraging). This is where NLP, hypnosis (the real thing, not the wave a flame in your face and make you stop smoking thing), and manipulation of a person's feelings by eliciting their key feeling words comes into play.
Best example and it's a dead obvious one, would be having a scene with Kim Kardashian in a slightly revealing getup talking to the audience of a movie theater and walking about while sipping on a big coke bottle. People that may not like coke may find Kim sexually arousing which generates social proof for the product in her hand and may loosen (but not fully convert) that consumer's dislike of the product. Case in point: I generally don't like Coca-Cola and it always make me feel crappy after drinking it (bloated, too much sugar, etc...) but I love to drink it at the theater. It just "tastes" good when I drink it at the theater because over time, through a combination of real life psychological links and the clever advertising Coke does in the theaters for its product I've grown to actually enjoy it when I'm at the theater. Now, that doesn't mean I actually purchase one when at the theater (I don't drink soda) but I am aware of the bridge created in my psyche.
[EDIT] I realize the OP's comment was actually on technological innovation and had nothing to do with what I ended up talking about. Hope my comment is at least still interesting :)