Mercedes-Benz are launching an advert campaign for the new Mercedes A Class that features just an image and the hashtag – #NewGeneration.
Aiming at a new generation of Mercedes buyers, MB are focusing their attention on social media to get the message across that the new A Class is young and funky and appealing rather than a pretend Mercedes for your granny.
So they’re running an ad campaign that features just an image of the new A Class and a hashtag – #New Generation – to get social media followers rushing to Twitter to discover more. But it doesn’t stop there.
The TV advert is the first by a car maker to make use of the Aurasma app to get extra content on your Smartphone, not just from the TV advert but across ‘key motoring, fleet and national lifestyle publications and point of sale adverts’. Mercedes are certainly aiming to cover the new media bases.
That will also include a homepage takeover of Spotify to get users to choose the song they’d use for the new A Class advert and Tweet it to win free Spotify Premium Membership (we’re not sure Mercedes are actually prepared for some of the likely suggestions).
MB’s Marketing Director, David George, said:
The A-Class is a real game-changer for the brand. The Pure and Simple campaign is designed to raise awareness of the new generation for Mercedes-Benz and is the beginning of a major launch for this exciting new vehicle.
Which all makes perfect sense. Except we’re not that sure the people Mercedes are aiming at with the adverts are all that fussed about cars in general.
2012 Mercedes A Class Photos
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(44 photos – click any thumbnail for full gallery)
New Mercedes A Class #NewGeneration Advert
Rich Truesdell says
While it’s not surprising that the auto manufacturers are trying new ways to reach buyers, what’s with this preoccupation with thinking that so-called social media is the way to do it, especially for a premium brand trying to reach younger or first-time buyers.
First, these buyers have little interest in buying a new car, they would rather have the latest smartphone. Second, most can barely afford to by a 10-year-old beater, much less a new Mercedes-Benz that costs $35,000 or more here in the US. You can’t buy or finance a new car if you don’t have a job.
And I’m no fan of Facebook (Twitter and LinkedIn work much better for me) as it now looks like GM wasn’t so dumb when they pulled their $10 million in advertising on the eve of the Facebook IPO.
The question is this, what is a company like Mercedes-Benz, which has one of the best-known brands in the world, doing something like this? Ford tried the same thing here in the US (http://bit.ly/JNYndw) and it’s my opinion that there’s been little payback for them especially when you consider that the Fiesta has not met Ford’s sales expectations in spite of relatively high petrol prices here.