Automotive and Fashion: Mercedes CLA

INTRODUCING

Yesterday Mercedes presented its brand new CLA in Italy, and more precisely at "Milano Moda Donna 2013", one of the most important fashion events in Milan.
The new German sedan is the special guest at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Club (here's the Facebook page), landmark of the Milan Fashion Hub, thanks to which is going to consolidate Mercedes 5 year presence as sponsor at the event.


TWO DIFFERENT WORLDS

I just said that Mercedes has been taking its presence at this important event for the last 5 years.
Let's now see what kind of advantages could a carmaker take out of this.
Well, first of all I have to say that a partnership between brands is a sort of melting pot for their worlds of values: the most important thing is that the actors could match each others brand values in order to generate a balanced view in the consumer's perception.
If this requirement is satisfied, a brand could be correctly recognized by the target, whose mind could now be enriched with a more complex values system. 
Just remember that the brand awareness is the milestone we always start from. (Ok, we are now talking about one of the most famous brands in the world, just keep that in mind for other cases).


THE VALUES

I told you how values worth, so the next step I'd like to develop regards a short Mercedes brand analysis: it could be useful to better understand what it does have with the fashion industry.

BRAND PERSONALITY	Strong, scrappy, fierce. Refined and polished, but with a young soul.
CULTURE (VALUES)	Exclusive, classic, somewhat individualist but "democratic".
CONSUMER MENTALISATION	Modernized, but it’s a status cornerstone.
REFLECTED CONSUMER	Father who cares about elegance, status and essence.
RELATIONSHIP	Exclusive, “classy”.
PHISIQUE	Harmonious.

 (Kapferer's brand identity prism)

Scanning this table, it easily comes out how "fashion-oriented" is became Mercedes' brand image during the last years. 
Indeed, it is clear how the German car maker has made so many efforts, starting roughly from the 90's (remember the economic crisis), to turn its image into a more dynamic and "democratic" one, trying to get closer to consumers and, most of all, to the potential ones.
Despite this new approach, Mercedes can't obviously lose its original way (the risk would be the one to entirely jeopardize the brand equity) so that they have built a sort of democratic luxury positioning over the original aristocratic brand personality.
It is knew how the fashion industry has realized, over the last year, a democratic luxury positioning too, due to a more attentive and careful consumer (who tends to be bargain oriented).
So, the partnership with Milan Fashion Week, in a relevant period of time, contributes to give an added value to the German brand (and, of course, to the event) thanks to a continuous circulation of values between the two brand's worlds.
So, Mercedes is affected and enriched by fashion nature, and the same thing happens for the event, which is enriched by Mercedes.
Here, we arrive to another fundamental point. Running through the brands evolution, it's possible to set different steps, defined by "cornerstones" around which the brands have to built their relationship with the customers. 

• In the 60's, this cornerstone I'm talking about, was represented by objective benefits, that the so called "hero-product" had to solve.
• During the 70's and the 80's, the consumer is not interested in tradition anymore, and is looking for brand new products, that have to be closer to people: here we find the personal benefits.
• With the new millennium, the trade-mark becomes mind-mark, and the accent over emotional values continues in a more sophisticated way.     The brand has overcame the product.
• Finally, getting straight to the point, we arrive at the present: the values and the brand's possible worlds (which are generated in consumer's mind thanks to the brand associations) are now more important than the brand itself. According to the first part of this article, an event could simplify a positive flow of values, so that the intangible (the relationship) stands out.

HOW THEY DID IT

Until now, we talked theoretically. 
Now we are going to see how they have supported this partnership, so let's "learn why the CLA is a style icon worthy of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in this interview with top model Karlie Kloss and photographer Ryan McGinley":

And now let's take a look at the final result of this extraordinary collaboration.
Special car, "Mind of its own":

CONCLUSIONS

To sum up, we can now easily understand why Mercedes has presented a new model exploiting a fashion event instead of a "classic" auto show.
Nowadays, expecially in Europe, automakers has extremely reduced advertising and marketing investments, but they are still looking for alternative options to reach consumer's attention through the environmental noise. 
The final aim is to generate emotional values intruding upon the everyday life to better catch the attention of distracted and brand-crowded minds.
This can help us to underline another time the importance of events in which it's possible to generate a sort of "third dimension" where the values of the different brands could live together, enforcing each others and better reaching people's perception.