Cultural Marketing Strategies Mercedes-Benz Sells

Cultural Marketing Strategies

Mercedes-Benz sells cars all over the world, but like most companies it needs to make adjustments to its marketing strategies in order to accommodate cultural differences in the countries in which it operates. This paper will analyze how Mercedes markets its cars in Germany and how it does so in the United States, noting the differences between the messages and approaches in each nation.

In Germany, Mercedes is a domestic brand. While it markets its flagship name as a premium name, the marketing message is primarily focused on the vehicle and on lifestyle factors. In the United States, Mercedes is also a premium name, but the marketing message often attempts to play on the perception that many Americans have of German manufactured goods being high quality. In particular this perception applies to engineered goods. Daimler Benz has admitted that it "plays the German heritage card," even though Mercedes cars today are made in Alabama (Jost, 2005). By conflating the German brand with the product itself, Mercedes-Benz is able to leverage the German heritage of the car in its marketing despite the car being domestically produced.

In addition to the marketing message, other elements of the marketing mix also differ. One noteworthy case was the company's marketing of the Smart car in the two countries. In Germany, this car was given a high priority in marketing as a long-term part of the company's vehicle portfolio. In the United States, Mercedes had contracted out distribution to Penske, and the brand was not given priority. Mercedes then needed to take the brand into its own distribution channel in order to give it higher priority promotion (Eisenstein, 2011).

With the marketing message, the company clearly makes an effort to sell its products differently to different audiences. U.S. audiences perceive the Mercedes-Benz brand in particular differently from German audiences. The company makes an effort to tailor its marketing message around these different perceptions. With respect to distribution, the systems in the two countries are different, so there are naturally going to be differences. Those differences should be less today than would have been historically the case, since the Daimler-Chrysler merger made Mercedes a de facto domestic brand in each country, in terms of distribution access.

For some products, however, there are no significant differences between the marketing campaigns in Germany and the U.S. For high end products like the SLS AMG, the company's marketing campaign is more global in nature. Consumers of high-end performance Mercedes', however, are more likely to purchase based on the product itself and not just the name and a set of assumptions.