Case Study: Every Family Has a Rebel (Mercedes A-Class Launch)

Challenge:

Mercedes-Benz’s key challenge in launching the brand new A-Class was to break free from pre-existing A-Class ‘fuddy-duddy retiree’ perception and at the same time, acquire a new audience segment - “Young Affluents”, in Singapore. Against the backdrop of skyrocketing car COE prices (Certificate of Entitlement), the launch impact had to be huge in order to entice this new segment to re-appraise the brand.

Strategy:

These Young Affluents appreciated Mercedes-Benz’s fine engineering but wished it would come wearing a ‘leather jacket’. Thus to strike a chord with the audience, the A-Class campaign was created – a rebel in the family.

Particularly for this Young Affluent segment, we knew that if we simply told them that the model was ‘a rebel’ they would dismiss the message. Our strategy was to ‘break the media rules’, so for every touchpoint we used, we added some rebellious behavior by creating media firsts and breaking out of the traditional formats.

Execution:

We broke the media rules by

(a)  Going beyond the boundaries of traditional media spaces through applying advanced technology -we layered augmented reality technology on the print ad to showcase the car in its new light.

(b) Mashing up of old touchpoints with media firsts - The idea of the rebel was brought to life through Singapore’s first-ever youtube mimicry, on Mercedes-Benz channel, in which the target audience was treated to a nice surprise of the new A-Class breaking out of the standard mould of youtube.

(c) Creating innovative solutions through leveraging media partnerships - To ensure visibility on the digital sphere, we partnered with Mediacorp to film the highlights of the event and put it up as breaking news on Todayonline and youtube with hip people captured on camera as positively appraising the car.

Results:

Brand Consideration improved +12%, First month sales recorded above target.