Homework time!

This time we have been asked to analyse the online presence of a company.

Given their controversial launch campaign for the Class A in Brazil, I decided to talk about Mercedes Benz Brasil.

Their website is quite classic. Sensible, simple and straight forward:
http://www.mercedes-benz.com.br
They get more innovative when it comes to the specific product websites.

Now this is the fun part!

On the 4th of April, Mercedes made a post on their Facebook page with a link to the commercial for their new Class A car.
https://www.facebook.com/mercedesbenzbrasil/posts/355881541189504

The video went viral and caused a huge polemic discussion in the web, through blogs and other social media.

If you watched the video, you'll notice the commercial uses a "funk style" song that for some reason (God knows why???) became really popular in Brazil. The lyrics of this song, as usual don't really say anything.... But it talks about the new "steering wheel dance" that makes you spin from one side to the other (passinho do volante, girando prum lado, girando pro outro). And the tag line that starts with the letter A (Aaaahhhh lelek lek lek...).  As some of you already know, the funk comes from the favelas in Rio and if you watch the original video of the song you can clearly see that.

So the immediate question that comes to mind is...
WHY WOULD MERCEDES WANT TO ASSOCIATE THEMSELVES WITH THIS????

Mercedes is a high-end brand. The Class A is their "popular" car, but it costs almost R$100,000 which is much more expensive than the real "popular" cars which will cost you about half that.
So their target audience is obviously not the people that listen to funk music (safe some exceptions and I don't even want to go down that road...)

The comments you see on the web go from compliments to Mercedes for being so outrageous (very few) to the marketing director is an idiot and should be fired and the Class A will now become the car of the drug dealers and the most stolen car in Brazil.

Mercedes did a really good job in responding to these comments and staying on top of everything that was coming out in this discussion. They have a really good presence and this made their interaction with the public (customer base) much closer and intenser.

And they didn't let it last long....

On the 5th of April they made another post on their Facebook page:

It says:
"Surprised? You didn't expect this! Nor did you expect a car like this Mercedes Benz.
New Class A. The letter that came from the will to innovate.
Check out now the launch campaign in Brazil"

And you click and it takes you to the Class A website and before you can even see the website, the real commercial video comes on:

http://www.mercedes-benz.com.br/classea/

Now, more in line with what the Mercedes brand wants to portray.

And completely aligned with the international image of the car. As you can see from their German add:

And the American Add, with pilot Nico Rosberg:

But... if they had come out straight away with this add. They could have put it in the prime time on TV and not even half the people would be talking about it.

So congratulations to Mercedes Benz Brasil for brilliantly using their social media channels to get the public's attention to the launch of their new car in the market.
Hats off!!!

Realisation

So I went back and read all the old entries in this blog - also to see if there was nothing too embarrassing to share with my classmates and professor.
And I read my first post, how this blog started... and I realised that
OMG!!!! I GAVE IN TOO!!!!
Now I'm the one off doing an MBA!!!!

The irony of life!

But there are some observations that I need to make. And the most important one is that the reason I had in mind for doing an MBA back then was completely different to the reason that drove to me start this MBA I'm in right now. Too hard to explain but those of you who know me well enough will know what I mean ;-)

Either way I couldn't help but feel a little disappointment when a I realised that all the effort and all the things I did to try to break away from the convention and the vicious circle - lead me right back to it.

Good thing is that I know deep down inside that is not the case. And I did break away. But it's still ironic nevertheless.

Just recently I applied for a summer internship back in the banking world. Hold! I'm not doing it, I'm doing something a lot more exciting!!!! But the fact that I even applied made me realise it's REALLY EASY to fall back into that comfort zone if we don't watch ourselves.

So basically this post is to remind myself that I need to watch out for that. I didn't go through all that I did to go back to where I was. That's an easy temptation and trap to fall into. I need to remember to be strong and resist. Because as I now know, there is a lot more out there to be explored. And if I go back, I'll miss out!