Mao Jingbo: Using Art as a Marketing Method

September 16, Chengdu car opening. Mercedes-Benz has brought together 27 models of the four brands Mercedes-Benz, smart, AMG and Maybach. Among them, there are up to four starting launch models: Long-wheelbase E-Class sedan E 300 L, new SLK-class convertible sports car, GL 450 4MATIC Grand Edition Grand Edition and smart Kobe Special Edition.

Mao Jingbo, vice president of Mercedes-Benz China Marketing, who should have appeared on the scene, did not arrive but took the task to Chicago on the other side of the ocean to participate in the shooting of Mercedes-Benz E-rated commercials. In her view, whether this task is completed or not is directly related to the next Mercedes-Benz E-class marketing record in the domestic market.

Love is the biggest purchasing power

Careful people have found that in recent years, Mercedes-Benz has often appeared in many activities related to golf, F1, and artistic fashion circles. Indeed, Mao Jingbo told reporters: "From 2007 to 2010, Mercedes-Benz is mainly responsible for the brand reset, hoping to give consumers a comprehensive Mercedes-Benz image." It's easy to say.

In order to reset the "young, diverse" brand charm, Mao Jingbo led her marketing team to conduct a series of offline activities. “There is a Mercedes-Benz Cultural Center in the south and a National Grand Theatre in the North.” In Mao Jingbo’s view, two Mercedes-Benz-sponsored venues can play a role in marketing, “because the two will make a lot of efforts,” because the top venues will be locked to the top The arts and artists, so that it will not be a sponsor of the moment, but a long-term sponsorship.

Moreover, outside these two fixed venues, Mercedes-Benz also tried to make a flowing Mercedes-Benz festival. “This is liquidity, can go to other cities, and enhance the feelings of the dealer.” At the same time of marketing, Mao Jingbo did not forget to strengthen communication with dealers through the form of art.

However, there are also people who question the music festival's over-emphasis on classicalism and its distance from ordinary consumers. However, Mao Jingbo does not think so. "The purpose of setting up different platforms is to attract different audiences because cultural preferences may not be the same."

"Classical music is not what many people say: 'I don't understand Bach, Mozart, Brahms'. In fact, if you like it, you must understand it. If you listen to it more naturally, you will understand." Mao Jingbo thinks "The promotion of classical music is more in line with the brand history of Mercedes-Benz's 125th anniversary." Moreover, Mao Jingbo also found that classical music is not as far-reaching as imagined, such as Christophe Eisenbach, and many customers are particularly interested in him. Because many children of Mercedes-Benz owners learn piano. This further strengthened her communication with customers through the arts.

In fact, through organizing different marketing interactions, Mao Jingbo is also analyzing his target customers. She did not use traditional methods to emphasize the age of the customers, but focused on their attitudes towards life. "From a marketing point of view, product-oriented marketing can be called marketing 1.0. User-oriented can be called 2.0. For example, what users like and what we produce." Mao Jingbo believes that "marketing 3.0 is Value-oriented, not catering to customers in the 2.0 era, but interacting with one another through dialogue.” Under this concept, a series of activities such as golf, tomorrow's star tennis training camp, music festival, and fashion week will become Mercedes-Benz and Customer dialogue platform.

In the past four years, the direction of Mercedes-Benz is to create brand young and diverse leadership charisma. "In the new four years, we will exert greater efforts to build consumers' love and confidence in the Mercedes-Benz brand because love is the greatest purchasing power." Mao Jingbo said, "Our marketing activities are not just for marketing, but for the sake of More and more meaningful brand added-value is presented to a wide range of users. For us, the greatest welfare for our customers is the next frontier area we wish to conquer.”

Creating Mercedes-Benz's "Two Sides"

How to conquer consumers' love is a seemingly illusory but real problem facing Mao Jingbo. Take SLK, a hardtop convertible sports car listed in 2008 as an example. After the auto show of that year, Zhang Ziyi spoke of SLK and SLK quickly became popular in China. Unexpected problems have also emerged with it.

"Maybe because it was too successful, we have more female owners in this car," Mao Jingbo told reporters. "The special problem that needs to be solved this time is this."

It is understood that SLK in foreign countries is dominated by men. In order to highlight its masculine nature in the Chinese market, the new version of the SLK, which is listed on the market, has extended the engine cover, and the waist lines on both sides of the car body are tilted backwards. "In the premise of losing women's customers, we hope to attract more male car owners." How to achieve both with creativity is a problem. Mao Jingbo led her team to think of a lot of ways, but in the end it started with a small mask, because the mask is very fashionable and mysterious, and both men and women are suitable. This is the "mysterious image" of Fan Bingbing and F1 racer Rosberg in the commercial.

In fact, Zhang Ziyi's previous single person, to the present double star of Rosberg and Fan Bingbing, showed the intention of Mercedes-Benz marketing. Including the later text information, it also has two sides. For example, in the brochure, one side is a soft image with Fan Bingbing as the cover, and the other is the power beauty with Rosberg as the cover, such as the engine and the edges and corners. "The two sides talk about products from the same point of view and finally converge on the cars."

How do Mercedes-Benz do smart

As a vice president responsible for marketing, Mao Jingbo faced pressure not only from the Mercedes-Benz brand, but also smart. According to the latest statistics, in the first eight months of this year, smart delivered a total of 7,175 vehicles, an increase of 291.48% year-on-year. From the data point of view, this is undoubtedly a success, but Mao Jingbo is still "not satisfied."

It is understood that at the beginning of the handover, Mao Jingbo thought that the smart car is small and the price is not very high. Another approach should be adopted, such as paying more attention to creativity and more online marketing, especially to young students. It was later proved that this idea is not entirely correct. Their survey found that 60% to 70% of smart car owners are Mercedes-Benz owners. Few people consider it the first car, and more are the second and third cars. "Few people use it directly as a means of transport, but as a form of expression and declaration of individuality, this is very inspiring to us." After realizing this, Mao Jingbo began to adjust his marketing ideas. It is to seek innovation and breakthrough, and the other is to combine with the Mercedes-Benz brand. How to do smart Mercedes-Benz marketing how to do smart."

In particular, to prove the greatness of smart, Mao Jingbo even put the NBA star and Kobe who was nearly 2 meters tall into the car with ease. However, she also believes that the big concept is actually relative, and the space that oneself occupies is just enough to leave it to others. Mao Jingbo once again artized the concept of "big".

Mao Jingbo, who specializes in sports marketing, organized a special event at the Mercedes-Benz Center for Culture and Arts in order to use it as a smart method for Mercedes-Benz. One of its purposes is to combine smart and Mercedes. Watching more than 200 owners driving a smart and Kobe confluence, Mao Jingbo was very surprised, but she also believes that “this is to create value for customers that is hard to buy, so that they can feel the value out of the product, which other brands cannot bring about. Experience."

This may be exactly what Mao Jingbo really conveys because she wants to conquer consumers' "love."

Marketing is changing awareness

Although they did not visit the Chengdu Auto Show, Mao Jingbo’s emphasis on the three cars listed on the Chengdu Auto Show did not diminish, especially the new E 300 L elegant model.

For such an 8th-generation model, the elegant E-Class launch enriched the E-Class model series, filling the E 260 L fashion model (56 million yuan) and the E 300 L fashion model (675,000 yuan). The market gap between. In spite of this, Mao Jingbo still faces no small challenge because she acknowledges that the Mercedes-Benz E-class is not well-known in China and consumers do not know enough about the E-Class.

In fact, Mao Jingbo, who always likes to challenge, is not willing to do something icing on the cake. “GLK's pre-sale is better now, which is not a challenge for us. On the contrary, E-class can better show the power of our marketing.” Mao Jingbo believes that “marketing is changing perception. The biggest challenge for us is not enough time. However, such a product that has accumulated more than 12 million vehicles overseas has undoubtedly given Mao Jingbo great confidence.

Of course, Mao Jingbo, who is good at hardships, has already planned three shock waves for the development of the E-class: the first wave is the Chengdu Auto Show as a symbol of the plane marketing on October 11; the second wave is from October 11 to November In the middle, the marketing mix of the plane plus TV is the third wave of new stereoscopic marketing activities by the end of the year.

"The E-class car's marketing investment will be three times that of all models, unprecedented, more than all the new car market activities, and even the investment of the Mercedes-Benz 125th anniversary celebration." Mao Jingbo for the E-class display of aspirational confidence.