Mercedes Smart“The Unexpected Test

Drive”BBDO

BBDO – Ownership

• BBDO (Batten, Bardon, Durstine and Osborn) is a worldwide advertising agency network, it's headquarters based in New York City.

• The company is owned by the 'parent' organisation, Omnicon Group Inc., who are an American marketing and corporate communications holding company.

• BBDO was established in 1891 with George Batten's 'Batten Company', and later on (September 21 1928), merged with BDO (Barton, Durstine and Osborn) to become BBDO.

• Bruce Barton was made the chairman of the board, and William H. Johns (president of the Batten Co.) became president of BBDO.

• The new agency had over 600 employees, with branch offices in Chicago, Boston and Buffalo. In 1986, BBDO merged with Doyle Dane Bernbach and Needham Harper (Omnicom).

BBDO – Operating Model

• Today, BBDO has 289 offices in 80 countries, serving world wide. There are a total of 15,000 employees, with a client list including AT&T, PepsiCo, FedEx, Mars, Campbell's, Hewlett-Packard, Olympus, Emirates and Starbucks.

• The departments within the advertising agency include:• Agency Management (a management team including the chief

executive (Andrew Robertson being the worldwide executive officer) and finance director)

• Account Services• Account Planning• Media• Creative Services• Production

BBDO – Products

• BBDO creates a wide range of products, from print to screen, and has worked with a variety of companies:

• The Economist• Visa Inc.• FedEx• Mercedes• Wrigley• AT&T• Mars• Monster.com• Pinnacle Foods• Starbucks• Hewlett-Packard• Emirates• Olympus• Wells Fargo

BBDO – Market Position

• BBDO is a global player in the advertising industry, with an annual revenue of $1,310.2 million and securing approximately $750 million in published new business wins (including Mercedes, Fiat, Capital One, Starbucks and Sony).

• HP named BBDO the global agency for Digital Imaging and Printing Business in at least 50 markets, and Tag Heuer and Hyatt named it the global agency of record.

BBDO – Competitors

• Even though BBDO is the world's most awarded advertising agency, it still has competitors (it’s three main competitors being):

• J. Walter Thompson Company (JWT)• Leo Burnett Company Inc.• McCann Worldgroup

This is the main logo for the campaign. Mercedes wanted to create a campaign that:

a) Demonstrates the benefits of driving a smaller carb) Will become a viral stunt to capture the intended audience’s

attentionc) Increase the awareness of the Smart Car and their qualities

that make them appropriate for busy cities like Moscow

• Mercedes wanted to target the emerging middle class in Moscow

• They looked at how the citizens were only interested in large and expensive cars, as it was a sign of their wealth

• Mercedes noticed that the citizens of Moscow struggled the most with illegal parking and their cars getting towed over an hour away from Moscow’s centre

• ‘The Unexpected Test Drive’ was created by BBDO Moscow, offering stranded drivers the opportunity to try out the Smart car when they needed a car to use

The Issue

The Solution

• Mercedes swooped in when the drivers were in desperate need, offering them to chance to use their Smart Cars when they had no other cars available to them

• The abandoned citizens accepted and used the Smart Cars, therefore going on an ‘Unexpected Test Drive’

• As a result of this campaign, over 70% of the Smart Car test drivers admit that they became ‘true believers’ of the city-appropriate vehicle

• 40 Smart Cars saved 623 car-less drivers during the three day campaign

Print Case Study

This is the print product I will be analysing, as it is a piece taken from the Mercedes Smart: Unexpected Test Drive

campaign

• The house style for the campaign is yellow, red, black and white. Yellow captures your attention because it is a bright colour and is meant to evoke happiness when you look at it.

• The colours are complementary to each other, but the red car has been purposefully made to stand out against the other two black cars, showing that the Smart car is different to other cars.

• Mercedes is suggesting to the audience that the Smart car is bold and stands out and is competitive with the other larger, more powerful cars on the market.

• The text of 'Mercedes Smart, Unexpected Test Drive' is simple and minimalistic. The font chosen is modern and sophisticated, and works well with the feel of the campaign. Mercedes has interestingly included the name ‘Mercedes’ in the title of the campaign, perhaps to make a point that the Smart cars are actually a product of the large, well-known (to the higher class) manufacturer, so they will be more appealing to higher status buyers as well as working/middle class drivers.

• Mercedes has chosen to get straight to the point with the 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. It is easy to pick up on the idea behind the campaign just by looking at this print.

Print Case Study

Audience Research

Advertising Standards Authority

• The ASA is a self-regulatory organisation of the advertising industry in the UK. It's a non-statutory organisation and so it cannot interpret and enforce media laws. However, it's codes of advertising practice reflects the principles of media law often.

• According to the ASA, an advert has to be:• Honest• Truthful• Decent• Legal

• Adverts that are not allowed are:• Misleading Ads:

• No advertisement should mislead, or be likely to mislead, by inaccuracy, ambiguity, exaggeration, omission or otherwise

• Harmful Ads:• Ads for age restricted products, such as alcohol and gambling, must not be

targeted at (or likely to appeal to) an audience under the age of 18

• Offensive Ads:• Advertisements should contain nothing that is likely to cause serious or

widespread offence

Distribution and Promotion• Russia was the target audience for this

campaign, as it primarily focuses on the struggle with parking and congestion with their large cars, so the advertisement was distributed around Moscow, Russia.

• Looking at the Russian BBDO website (http://bbdogroup.ru/eng/wedo/works/type/media/) it shows that the whole campaign was a multi-platform media based campaign.

• The campaign was made up of two print-based ad and one video ad (that was uploaded to YouTube).

• BBDO spread awareness through advertising across various multi-media platforms such as Facebook, where the test drivers wrote about their experiences driving a Smart car.

• The print advertisements are given to the consumer once they've test driven the car.

• The campaign was primarily focusing on Moscow and it's traffic jams, congestion problems and parking issues, however since it is a media based campaign it's actually an international campaign, because it will be shared worldwide across all media.

• This is the print-based advertisement that would have been handed out to the Smart car test drivers and other members of the public to inform and educate about Smart cars and their benefits.

• It is most likely that Mercedes Smart advertised their campaign by putting up the main print advertisement on Billboards in Moscow, Russia, and this is known as outdoor advertising.

• The average price of advertising on a billboard is around 3500 GBP, which is the equivalent of 333465.71 Russian Rouble (RUB).

• The video ad for the Smart campaign was put onto YouTube (video is above) so it could be viewed worldwide.

• The video campaign so far has 15,000 views. It was also advertised across multi-media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, where people talked about the campaign and spread awareness through word of mouth/sharing/liking comments and so on.

Distribution and Promotion

Ethical and Legal Issues

• My research shows that the advertising campaign made the audience more aware of the issues surrounding parking and high congestion in overcrowded cities, and appreciated the benefits people who live in the city would get out of having a smaller car.

• Some evidence shows that small cars are just not practical for the individual for personal reasons, ie. it's too small for a family. By carrying out further research in areas such as London, I feel that Smart cars would be of more interest.

• The advert represents issues surrounding parking in Russia, representing the situation of not being able to park in large cities. BBDO focused on Russia because they appeared to be having the most problems with high congestion charges, parking, and getting their large cars towed away.

• There are no current ethical or legal issues regarding this campaign. However, one thing to consider is the opinions of the drivers. What could be questioned is whether they were the true opinions of the drivers, or whether they have been encouraged to add positive reviews by BBDO to further push the idea of Smart cars being the best cars, and to make the audience believe that they are.

• Legally, when a company makes a claim about their product, they have to be backed up with scientific evidence:

• The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations means that you (as a company) can't mislead or harass consumers, in this case by including false or deceptive messages.

• BBDO have made sure to include scientific evidence to back up their claims, saying that there was a 70% conversion rate. But with the Facebook comments, there is no way to provide solid proof that the drivers who tested the Smart cars actually are true believers of the cars.