The Campaign

Over 98% of our target audience uses Yahoo, the leading web portal in Taiwan. And according to Nielsen research, 50% of our target audience reads either the Liberty Times or the Apple Daily, the top 2 Taiwan newspapers. Our idea was to create the sensation of premium, SUV leadership for Mercedes-Benz’ by prominently leveraging these leading media outlets. Our print and internet ads were visually similar, both striking and clearly highlighting the Mercedes-Benz logo after learning from Mercedes-Benz’ research that the top two key elements influencing SUV purchasing decisions in Taiwan were aesthetics, and brand reputation. Our work using the two most prominent ad-spaces on Yahoo will likely be imitated soon by other high profile brands. And finally, Toyota already mimicked our print strategy, the following month running a full, front page SUV ad in the same newspaper outlets, disrupting headlines in exactly the same way as we did.

Creative Execution

Timing was key for this medium-scale, 5-product campaign, tasking us with a 20% YOY sales boost. On October 14th, 18:00 to 20:00, we held an intimate, outdoor launch party for press and VIPs in Taipei’s most elite district. Attendees saw firsthand each SUV model and numerous demos illustrating their value. Our TV launch began at 19:00, simultaneously with our internet launch. Our 45 second spots ran on news stations, continuing for 3 weeks. Utilizing Yahoo as our internet centerpiece, we consumed the Yahoo portal from 19:00 to 23:00. An industry first, we secured the top two advertising positions, creating a unified, interactive, creative element offering four videos telling every product story. On October 15th, we disrupted headlines by running full, front page advertisements in The Liberty Times and The Apple Daily. Our paper ads were visually similar to our internet elements, employing striking graphics appearing to “drive off” the page.

• Mercedes-Benz exceeded their goal of 20% quarterly year over year sales growth. • This was the first time that Yahoo ran four creative video elements in one advertising position. • This was also the first time that one campaign connected two adjacent banners on the Yahoo portal. o This resulted in over 5 million impressions in 3 hours of exposure. o Drove 100,000 clicks to the product website, and the CTR for this campaign was higher than that of the 2014 Q4 campaign. • Our campaign marked the first time that two key newspapers in Taiwan simultaneously allowed advertising to interrupt the front page headline area. o This resulted in combined exposure of 0.9M for our campaign. • Testament to our strategy leadership, it only took one month for Toyota to use the same dual-newspaper, headline interruption press strategy when launching their own SUV.

We introduced a comprehensive, cross-media strategy launch campaign for the new Mercedes-Benz SUVs in 2015 that broke ground in two key ways for the the Taiwan market, and was positively received by our audience. We secured the leading position on the Yahoo portal, connecting two advertising spaces to create one interactive panel, a first in the Taiwan market. This was coordinated with a simultaneous TV spot launch at exactly 19:00. The following day, we ran full, front page ads in Taiwan’s two most popular newspapers, marking the first time that that the top two newspapers both allowed headline-disrupting advertising.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

We aimed for a bold, high-impact approach for this campaign by starting with a powerful, attention-grabbing primetime opening for both TV and internet. We planned to follow this first-day splash with a second-day newspaper blitz, employing two front, full page, headline interrupting ads in Taiwan’s two biggest newspaper media outlets. Our target audience was quite wide, considerably wider than in previous campaigns. On one end of the spectrum, we were aiming for consumers who love the outdoors, go camping, enjoy hiking, surfing and other physical activities surrounding nature. And then on the opposite end of things, we were also targeting urban socialites, people who enjoy shopping, fashion, style, art and high profile, spotlight events. But the unifying characteristics of our audience was that we were reaching out to affluent individuals, people who are city-based, who have white-collar jobs and relatively high expectations in life.