Campaign and Video Analysis - BBDO

Mercedes Smart - Unexpected Test Drive
(BBDO Moscow, May 2013)

Mercedes wanted to create a campaign that targeted the middle class people of Russia, who own and drive large, expensive cars (such as Range Rovers). BBDO Moscow planned and launced the 'The Unexpected Test Drive' campaign after Mercedes realised that this middle class group showed no interest in Smart Cars, however they were struggling the most with their large cars being towed after parking illegally near the centre of Moscow. BBDO offered stranded drivers the opportunity to try out the Smart car when they most needed one.

In Moscow, illegal parking is a big issue, one that leads to having many drivers have their car towed to a location an hour away from the city centre. In response to this, the Unexpected Test Drive campaign evolved, where Mercedes offered the chance for drivers with large towed cars to try out the Smart cars; to try and encourage them to switch from the larger cars that they're used to, to a smaller car that would be significantly easier to park (exploiting their issue of having their cars towed after failing to find a space to park their larger cars).

In conclusion, 40 Smart cars helped 623 car-less drivers over three days. 400 saved drivers became true believers of Smart cards, and Mercedes say that the conversion rate was 70% alongside countless positive reactions from the drivers. Overall, Smart car sales increased by 300% in the last two weeks of the event.

Frequency
Mercedes has created a multi-platform campaign to advertise their Smart cars. The Smart Car advertising campaign has both print and video elements to the campaign, creating a wider effect frequency. Effective frequency is the number of times a person must be exposed to an advertising message before a response is made. For BBDO and Mercedes Smart, this means that more people will see the advert because it will be distributed across more than one media platform, creating more of an awareness for their campaign. For example, the video advert element of the campaign will allow people across the world to become aware of the campaign as it is on YouTube, and then they can talk about the advert across a variety of other social media sites, e.g. they can 'share' the video from YouTube onto Facebook, or they can talk about it on Twitter. Additionally, the print element to the campaign will allow people in Moscow to be targeted specifically (as they are the target audience for the experiment), because they will see the advert up on large billboards around the city and will get leaflets regarding the test drive experiment.

So, by incorporating print advertising with a video, Mercedes was able to reach a wider audience by providing a variety of materials to illustrate their campaign. For example, Mercedes have created the main bulk of the campaign, the video, and they have created a colour scheme so that all of the different products of the campaign are linked. (analysis of frequency - how often something is seen - effective frequency theory)

The colours that are used across the campaign are yellow, red, black and white. The colour yellow is used to evoke happiness and pleasant feelings, and it captures your attention because it is a bright colour. All of the colours used are complementary to each other, but the red car especially contrasts with the other two black cars, symbolising the fact that it is different to other cars. At first glance, you think that red symbolises danger, but you soon realise that what Mercedes is actually trying to suggest is that the Smart car is bold and stands out, and is as much as a competitor in the car industry as any of the other larger cars.

The text of 'Mercedes Smart, Unexpected Test Drive' is simple and to the point. The font chosen is modern and sophisticated, and works well with the minimalistic feel of the campaign. Mercedes has chosen to get straight to the point with this logo, using a couple of words to summarise the idea of the whole campaign so the audience automatically has an idea of what Mercedes is trying to get across, paired with the simple cartoon-styled images of the different cars.