Mercedes-Benz Intelligent Drive campaign

Communicating the benefits of driving assistance systems by involving an expert of human physiology.

Situation

According to the media coverage and customer feedbacks, car owners have not embraced driving assistance systems and on-board electronics. Journalists also mentioned that online readers are not interested in articles that focus on technology.

Task

To support the launch of Mercedes-Benz Intelligent Drive, the sales department tasked me to come up with ideas to make new driving assistance systems more relevant to the customers.

Action

At the time of the planning, Daimler AG was running an advertising campaign featuring former Formula 1 record champion Michael Schumacher. The key message was that if the best drivers could ‘stay on top of things’ behind the wheel, then the best cars should be able too. This inspired the idea of inviting Dr. Máté Petrekanits, Head of Laboratory at Semmelweis University’s Faculty of Sports Sciences to conduct an experiment on the effect of driving assistance systems with the aim of proving the systems benefits to the customers.

Dr. Máté Petrekanits had worked on the preparation of world class athletes, including several racing drivers and aircraft pilots and accumulated a large database of physiological data that he had collected using his purpose-built devices and software. He has the ability to measure several life functions while driving and analyse different scenarios.

We spent a day with the experiment, captured photo and video documentation and presented the findings on a static press event before inviting Dr. Petrekanits for internal trainings and dealer events. Initial discussions took place with international departments about the possibilities to continue the experiment on higher levels.

Result

A unique project with generally positive media coverage including publications that turned down the topic before. Interest from the dealer network and customers, strong arguments in favour of the driving assistance systems for the sales representatives.

Background

Commissioner: Mercedes-Benz Hungary
Client: Mercedes-Benz Hungary
Supporting agencies: Fit4Race, Pappas Auto, Gramy-H