Mercedes-Benz Experiments – Can Science Sell Cars!?
What do cool science tricks have to do with the Mercedes C-Class?
Admittedly nothing. The real point, and why the videos below make effective advertisements, is that as members of what Duke Professor Adrian Bejan refers to as the “human-and-machine species,” we want to identify simultaneously with nature and technology. Simply put, we want our technology to be as if a force of nature. Certainly this explains our passion for our iPhones and quite possibly Mercedes-Benz’s customers feel the same way. So although the C-Class ”Airmatic agility package” does not use sulphur hexafluoride in its technological secret sauce, the miraculous effect of a piece of metal floating on air does capture, in a metaphorical and even poetic way, what Mercedes might hope the user experience of the Airmatic system might be like.
Mercedes Benz C Class 2014 – Experiments
The folks at Mercedes-Benz’s advertising agency in Singapore (BBDO/Proximity Singapore) created the campaign for the 2014 C-Class Coupe bringing high-production values to both the Chladni plate experiment and the sine wave garden hose demonstration. In all, the agency produced a series of four 30-second spots, each using a different cool science gimmick to make a (tangential) point about a cool feature in the new C-Class.
The video’s below use the sine wave vibrating water from a garden hose effect to show off the “ESP Dynamic Cornering Assist” system; a theremin (that staple of sic-fi movie soundtracks) to highlight the “Gesture-based infotainment system with Touchpad”; and one I hadn’t seen before, an aluminum foil “ship” floating in a tank filled with the heavy gas sulphur hexafluoride (demonstrated in this video from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona) is used to sell the “Airmatic agility package.”
This technique, in many ways, is what content marketing is all about. A brand tries to associate itself with content that supports how the brand wants its customers to think about the brand. Mercedes is not saying that it actually uses the theremin to make its infortainment system, it is associating itself with the user responsiveness of that instrument to fill in the blanks of an equation for the customer. The experience of using the {{Gesture-based infotainment system with Touchpad}} is just like experience of using a {{theremin}} which is just like the experience of driving the {{2014 Mercedes-Benz C-Class}}!
You do the math, it adds up!
Source: Firrdaus Yusoff and Forbes
