It’s the festive season, and that means it’s time for touching advertisements to dominate social media.
Mercedes-Benz Malaysia has also capitalised on the upcoming Chinese New Year and has released 2 videos on their social media. However, it seems like the response they garnered wasn’t what they expected.
The first video was made public on 6th January (Friday) and it immediately went viral for the shoddy story line, bad acting, and halfhearted camerawork. It showed a woman and a man in a car, with the pair talking about the man’s elder brother. Apparently, the man isn’t on good terms with his elder brother, and the woman is persuading him to invite his brother to their reunion dinner.
It seems like a normal enough Chinese New Year-themed story, until Mercedes-Benz tried too hard to hard sell their “active parking assist” feature. We thought the scene was cringe-worthy, but the ending disappointed us further.
Don’t believe us?
You be the judge:
Known as a premium brand, customers naturally had high expectations for them, and it seems like majority of the netizens were quite critical of the video.
Negative comments flooded their Facebook page, with Facebook user Omar Michael saying, “Merc Benz is supposed to stand for excellence. And this ad totally destroys that credibility. How on earth was it approved? Who is your agency? Who in your marcomm department approved this trainwreck?”
His sentiment was also echoed by other netizens, who commented:
Just yesterday (Monday, 9th January), the car brand released another video clip from the same series, and as expected, the response it received was equally as bad. The 2nd video focused on a husband-and-wife duo who are on their way to their family reunion dinner. Like the first video, it featured cringe-worthy acting and a less than engaging story line.
Watch:
This was followed by disappointing comments from netizens, who urged Mercedes-Benz to hire better videographers as well as actors, and to not save on their advertising budget.
However, while speaking to Marketing Interactive Malaysia, Mark Raine, vice president of Mercedes-Benz’ Sales and Marketing Passenger Cars department, said, “(The social media clips) compliments the overall campaign taking on a different angle with a humorous and light-hearted twist. In general, we intend to create awareness for our brand, products, and services taking different and fresh approaches.”
He also explained that they decided on this approach as they wanted to engage with a wider audience using “using material with a more real-life touch and feel” rather than filming a full-fledged television commercial.
We’re not sure if it Mercedes-Benz intended to garner views this way, but one thing’s for sure, with more than 100k views and around 1000 shares, it has sparked the attention of the online community. As they say, there is no such thing as bad publicity.
Do you think the ads were deserving of the criticism? Or do you think Mercedes-Benz did a commendable job for it? Tell us what you think in the comments box below!
Source: Marketing Interactive.
