THE PROBLEM

Mercedes-AMG was associated with performance and loud combustion engines. The challenge in launching AMG electric vehicles was to tell the next chapter of the AMG story in the absence of the noise, attracting a new generation of drivers without alienating the brand’s hardcore fans.

THE STRATEGY

With a core concept - ‘Everything but quiet’ - we elevated the AMG brand above the noise of its combustion engines, and went beyond the established product narrative with campaigns that told the stories of the people behind the wheel: people who embodied the AMG brand - themselves anything but quiet. It was a creative move that was present throughout every campaign and became a defining executional asset within the ‘AMG goes E’ story.

THE OUTPUT

THE MULTI-YEAR PLAN

The ‘AMG goes E’ journey took place between 2020 and 2023. With multiple through-the-line, global campaigns we evolved AMG’s narrative one step at a time, establishing a future vision for the brand and following it up with new models, proof points, and personalities to tell the story. Together our campaigns future-proofed the brand and significantly impacted the commercial performance of new electric models.

CAMPAIGNS

PHASE 1. 2021 | PRELUDE

We laid the groundwork for AMG’s journey to electrification, priming audiences with a brand campaign that celebrated iconic models from AMG’s past, and the defining attitude they represented. Our concept? ‘If this is our past, imagine our future’, complete with a provocative endline ‘Are you AMG ready?’ The campaign established a look and feel that continues to inform AMG communications, and achieved engagement rates placing it amongst Mercedes’ five most successful campaigns ever.

PHASE 2. 2022 | EVERYTHING BUT QUIET

GT 63 S E-PERFORMANCE HYBRID 

Our core strategic approach enabled us to launch the first electrified AMG, the hyper powerful GT 63 S E-performance Hybrid by leveraging AMG’s existing partnership with Will.i.am. The musician and producer embodied the AMG brand as someone who is ‘Everything but quiet’, and proved the perfect ambassador to communicate the most powerful AMG ever made… that happened to be electric. The campaign proved a powerful follow up to Prelude, providing a concrete example of the future it promised and delving deeper into the personalities that share AMG’s attitude.

PHASE 3. 2023 | WE’RE COMING FOR YOU

EQS

Following the success of Everything but quiet, our global campaign for the first ever fully electric AMG, the EQS 53, led with another brand-embodying personality - F1 driver Lewis Hamilton. We’re coming for you made use of the now-established creative construct and look and feel, adapting it to create a distinctive creative campaign for EQS. We produced a full, through-the-line suite of assets and toolkits for the global launch, the success of which was proven not just by their durability for the launch of EQS but their use in launching the junior model, the EQE and later the EQE SUV.

2021 - 2022 | THE STAR IS REBORN

Mercedes SL

Our campaign for ‘The Star is Reborn’ demonstrated our agile approach. Though not part of the ‘AMG goes E’ portfolio, we accommodated the launch of Mercedes’ SL model using the core concept developed for ‘AMG goes E’. We celebrated the joy, rather than utility, that the SL model has represented over its 80 year history with a campaign that showcased the new model alongside iconic versions of the car from the past and the new audience that would drive it. We built out a complete comms ecosystem for the global launch including PR, social, brochures, ebooks and a full toolkit of materials to activate in local markets.

THROUGH THE LINE CAMPAIGNS

Each stage of these campaigns worked at every level of the consumption funnel, bringing our core strategy to bear on brand-building, top-of-funnel objectives as well as conversion at the bottom of the funnel.

Efficient production and delivery

Our production approach focused on efficiency and volume, capturing a breadth of moving imagery and stills in intensive shoots that were leveraged throughout the consumer journey, from digital spaces to dealerships. For each campaign, we developed global launch campaign strategies and delivered creative over a number of months, in numerous markets, with hundreds of assets across TV, print, digital, social and retail.

Durable, optimisable creative

As the global lead creative agency, we created assets, templates, toolkits and visual guidelines that were used for communications by marketing teams in different geographies, experiencing different market conditions, over a number of years. This created scope to optimise campaigns based on asset performance as well as external factors such as seasonality. We’re also proud to say that the look and feel guidelines we established with Prelude in 2020 are still in use today.