Danai Pathomvanich
Apr 22, 2015
Mercedes Benz has for decades successfully maintained an iconic brand that exudes premium quality and emotion in its customers’ hearts and minds.
In a recent McKinsey interview, Ola Kallenius 45, the Swedish-born member of the Mercedes-Benz Divisional Board responsible for marketing and sales shared his views on what is driving the future of luxury marketing.
“It has become a more challenging game, but I would say that some of the basics are still the same. You need an attitude, a story. You have but two buttons to push—emotion and intelligence, heart and mind” he said.
Analytics and big data
Although everyone talks about digital’s modern marketing role, Kallenius stressed that in today’s modern luxury world, the human touch is equally as important.
“Think about other luxury brands, like Hermès and Louis Vuitton. Look what they’re doing: they’re building flagship stores that are beautiful, where you actually like to just browse around before you buy. Those are emotional places.”
Most importantly, even for young people, the emotional side is equally as important as the digital side.
Best or nothing
Kallenius said Mercedes’ marketing core is based on its founding father’s mission to provide its customers’ the “ best or nothing”.
“He was not talking about a product description, per se. He was talking about attitude. You don’t rest on your laurels. You move beyond.”
Mercedes continues to push the emotional button very consciously across touch points in marketing.
“And the great thing with Mercedes is that you do have emotional brands. When you buy a Mercedes, it’s always been about the dream of the little kid one day driving the star.”
Digital’s contribution
Kallenius said that big data has changed the way, Mercedes is doing business.
The company’s car2go digital platform allows the company to know what happens to the cars 24 hours, 7 days a week all year round.
It allows the company to develop a one-on-one relationship with customers.
“We know, for example, how your brake pads are wearing. That data lets us know when a car needs service even before the customer does, so we can prompt a service appointment.”
“Mercedes me”
Through its digital platform, every Mercedes has a unique “Mercedes me” Mercedes ID.
“This allows seamless integration between your smartphone and your car, and between us and our vehicles.”
Integrating marketing with product development
Kallenius said the Mercedes has also completely reorganized its marketing and sales department to develop the “best customer experience” instead of developing different products for different areas.
“We bundle the different areas inside our headquarters function, which does the blueprint for the whole customer journey.”
The company, he said now has a steering committee that includes telematics people, entertainment people and IT people sitting together to develop marketing strategies.
“You also have to have engineering with you, and you have to have IT with you—otherwise it doesn’t work.”
Introducing product concierges
To enhance “best customer experiences” Kallenius said adapted a human touch it adapted from Apples’ ‘product genius’ idea.
“We call the role “product concierge.”
“It’s a role, in the retail network, that is not a sales role, so customers don’t have the pressure of the transaction when they speak with this person.”
The product-concierge’s primary role is solely to help Mercedes customers understand the product before the sale, after the sale, and after they have left the lot.
For instance, after a new customer has driven off the lot, the product concierges are available to help them with any unforeseen problems.
“Now, we’re training 500 product concierges in China”.
