Mercedes chases younger drivers

The recent Ultra Music Festival, co-sponsored by Mercedes-Benz Korea, drew about 100,000 fans for its two-day run.

German automaker targets

new generation customers

with innovative marketing

By Kim Tae-jong

Mercedes-Benz is targeting customers in their 20s and 30s with its newly launched vehicles. The German brand’s marketing and communication is also taking on a more youthful and innovative approach.

In line with this, the firm recently sponsored the Ultra Music Festival, one of the world’s biggest outdoor dance music festivals.

The second annual Ultra Music Festival took place last Friday and Saturday at Olympic Park in southern Seoul and featured 60 notable names in the electronic and dance music scene.

Visitors to the Mercedes-Benz lounge set up at the venue of the event enjoy playing darts.

As an official sponsor of the festival for young music fans, the company had a chance to “rejuvenate” its brand image and broaden its appeal to younger drivers.

It was an ideal venue to do this because the event successfully drew about 100,000 people, mostly in their 20s and 30s.

They enjoyed various forms of music provided by high-profile DJs such as Carl Cox, Armin van Buuren, Avicii, Afrojack, Tommy Trash, Boy George DJ Set, Riot Gear, Taku Takahashi, Shinichi Osawa and Krewella and also got to learn about the new image of Mercedes-Benz.

Mercedes-Benz staff offers drinks to visitors to its lounge at the festival.

Before the festival, the firm held events where it offered tickets to visitors on its official Facebook site at www.facebook.com/MercedesBenzKorea.

It also showcased the upcoming A-Class at the venue and opened a Mercedes-Benz lounge to better and directly communicate with young people. It was clearly a different approach to presenting a new model from conventional showroom approaches.

The A-Class is a strategic model for the firm, to help it transform its image into one more relevant to younger drivers and begin a new era of compact vehicles at Mercedes-Benz.

Mercedes-Benz Korea showcases upcoming A-Class compact sedans at the venue of the Ultra Music Festival. / Courtesy of Mercedes-Benz Korea

Introduced here for the first time at the 2013 Seoul Motor Show in March, the new A-Class was in the spotlight thanks to its sporty and dynamic looks.

It will be launched here in the latter half of this year with three variants — the A200 CDI, A200 CDI STYLE and A200 CDI NIGHT.

Presenting the A-Class and the CLA-Class compact cars at the motor show, the luxury brand vowed to aggressively expand the luxury market for young drivers.

“The two new vehicles are of great importance to Mercedes-Benz here. Mercedes-Benz’s clear aim is to maintain growth in the Korean market. And in order to do this, we will be offering more and novel products to new customer segments,” said Mercedes-Benz Korea CEO Britta Seeger. “We want to sell our cars to all generations.”

Rejuvenation

But the luxury automaker’s effort to appeal to younger drivers began years ago with the launch of the new generation C-Class compact in 2011.

The firm invited about 1,000 customers in their 20s and 30s to the launch event of the compact sedan at the Sheraton Grand Walkerhill in Seoul and held a party that featured popular DJs along with professional dancers.

The introduction of the C-Class through this special event served as an initial step toward meeting a change in consumer needs, because young drivers are shunning the conservative sedans preferred by older generations in favor of smaller, sportier versions.

This is a new trend, and the image change isn’t going to happen overnight. Never before has Mercedes targeted young professionals because this demographic would normally have to wait until they had achieved a certain level of financial stability before being able to purchase a Mercedes.

But the firm’s new vehicles such as the new C-Class has certainly started to change that perception.

The firm geared up challenging its “old” and “conservative” images by introducing other new vehicles.

In April last year, the firm displayed the new B-Class at COEX Millennium Plaza where a many young people flock to, when it launched the premium compact hatchback vehicle.

It also unveiled the new C63 AMG Coupe at the 2012 Sensation, the world’s best electric dance music festival, held at KINTEX in Ilsan, Gyeonggi Province, even before its official launch here, and displayed the model at Club Octagon so that young people had a chance to take a close look at the sporty coupe.

With the growing interests of younger drivers in Mercedes, the firm also opened an official Facebook fan site when it launched the new M-Class SUV here in May last year.

As of June this year, the firm’s official fan site has over 94,300 members.

The firm plans to hold a variety of further marketing events outside showrooms and online to market its models aimed at younger people and create a new market for small luxury vehicles.

The idea is that the younger people are when they start driving a Mercedes, the more likely they are to buy higher-end versions as they get older.