Smaller, Cheaper Benzes Ante Portas
Red alert for armchair marketing strategists: Daimler plans what surely will be branded as an inexcusable watering down of its brand equity: The Mercedes brand is working on a series of very small (under 4 meters) and affordably priced (17,000 to 20,000 Euro) cars.
According to Germany’s Focus magazine, the baby Benzes will be Daimler’s answer to BMW’s Mini. According to the story, the series will launch with a small SUV below the GLA, and a small van in 2015. A year later, a 3 door version will follow. The cars will be based on Daimler’s A-Class, but will be much shorter.
Daimler urgently needs to make its cars attractive and approachable for younger demographics as the bulk of its core customers is about to retire – at least as far as its home market is concerned.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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I am not sure what Benz is about here. The Mini sells as an arguably well executed re-incarnation of a cult vehicle. An A-Class derivate would be just another small car, with a "luxury"-badge - the Cadillac-lbaled Daewoo comes to mind. It does not give a younger audience extra disposable income to spend on a label. Benzers should maybe try to tell their accountants to shut up and have their designers come up with a new S-Klasse based on technology, quality, durability and style to re-establish the marque. Its glory days are now a couple of decades in the past. With their plethora of styles out there - A-, B-,C-, E-, G-, M-, R-, S-Klasse, CLA, CLK, CLS, GLK, ML, SL, SLK, SLS, Citan ... - Benz turns more and more of a brand for the masses, which may be ok for them financially. Just as a distinguished "luxury"-brand they are losing ground. I would not consider any of their models - even if I had the money.
They need a separate brand - Simca, Yugo, ZAZ come to mind.
The SMART was simply too expensively engineered. The smart way to make a small car is to go low-cost then ante up with options, as BMW did with the MINI. An A-Class derived super-mini is definitely necessary to compete with MINI and the A1. But they have to play it smart. Something like the CLA will still play to upscale pretensions while expanding their reach downmarket... a whole lot better than something like yet another A-Class or B-Class derivative would.
It appears Renault/Nissan will play a more influential role with Daimler`s small car development plans.