Scion, Mercedes and the Battle for Gen-Y Drivers

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There is a nice little post over on YPulse that takes a look at two very different new media approaches to marketing cars to young people.

Scion has been actively targeting youngins for a while now, making appearances in a number of AdultSwim cartoons including “Assy McGee” and “Frisky Dingo.” I guess they weren’t getting what they wanted from that relationship so they are now making their own branded entertainment which can be viewed oven at on their very own branded portal, here.

Their latest series, “The Fists of Oblivion”, features a bunch of Kung Fu puppets. And not a single Scion. Or much in the way of entertainment value – unless you really dig puppets fighting.  It isn’t clear how this will help sell cars.  Even more interersting is that “The Fists of Oblivion” gets exactly one unrelated return on a Google search, so god knows how anyone would even find it if they wanted to.

Meanwhile, Mercedes is taking a more high-minded approach:

“…by inviting an exclusive group of Gen Y consumers to www.generationbenz.com, a password-protected website. MediaPost (reg. required) reports that the site is an attempt to mine the select Gen Y sample for insight towards their “attitudes, lifestyle and brand preferences” through questionnaires, polls and live chats. Ultimately, the company “hopes to get a new group of consumers into the brand and shape the brand for the future.” (via)

Whether either of these campaigns will get young people to buy their cars is tough to gauge but at least Mercedes has a chance of coming away with a bit of useful data

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Mercedes Mix Tape Leaves Me Confused

So, Mercedes has launched a new online effort called Mercedes-BenzTV that is one-part little featurettes tangentially about the lifestyle surrounding Mercedes and one part new music show with downloadable mp3s.

I understand the little featurettes.  They’re not ground-breaking but they’e nicely made and well presented.  It is the “Mix Tape” that confuses me.

According to WSJ:

“The show is an attempt to reach out to youngsters with interests “beyond cars,” Mercedes-Benz says. By focusing on promoting music rather than its S-Class luxury sedan, the company hopes to draw the “customers of tomorrow” and get them to associate the Mercedes-Benz brand with being hip.”

Is this a terrible goal?  No.  Is their very hard to find and completely redundant music show going to get them there.  Not a chance.  Aside from watching the video on their site (which took me FOREVER to find – try to get there just through a Google search and see how you do) they have at least syndicated to YouTube.

So, how’s it doing with the “hip” kids on YouTube.  Well, episode one went up last month and has so far garnered just under 1300 views and the second episode, posted just yesterday has soared to 11 views.  Yup, 11.

See why for yourself:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQr0djyMokE&hl=en]