Mercedes-Benz activates its status as international premium partner of Electronic Sports League (ESL) One through an integrated activation spearheaded by a blockbuster cinema and television commercial called ‘Grow Up In eSports With Mercedes-Benz’.
The spot urges aspirational young adults to literally ‘grow up in a new generation of sports’ as its champions the way that eSports, its players and fans are rewriting life’s unwritten rules.
According to the commercial, eSports keeps reinventing itself and raising the bar every day and thus matches today’s young adult generation.
The stylish and dramatic TV spot closes by urging viewers that the brand will ‘see you at ESL One Genting 2018 – where the world’s best Dota 2 teams will compete!’
It is linked to supporting digital and social content through the hashtags #GrowUp and #RiseOn.
Proud to be part of #ESLOne and the amazing @DOTA2 action!
Nearly as amazing as the new Mercedes-Benz E-Class Sedan, test drive it now! pic.twitter.com/CanAMwk4A6— Mercedes-Benz (@MercedesBenz) October 29, 2017
As well as engaging a younger, aspirational generation of brand fans, Mercedes-Benz’s eSports partnership with the international ESL One competition in Stuttgart and Katowice (the former links geographically to the premium car brand’s home city).
The competition – which saw 80 players, 16 teams and $1m in prize money saw the world’s best Dota 2 (a real-time strategy game) players and teams culminated at the Spodek Arena in Katowice on 24 and 25 February 2018.
Mercedes-Benz awarded the tournament’s best player a vehicle of his/her choice (valued at 50,000 euros): the game’s global fan community and a jury voted the Russian Vladimir “RodjER” Nikogosyan the most valuable player (MVP).
Ass well as its on-site and on-screen brand presence at the event and the MVP vote, Mercedes-Benz also produced a tournament opening video in partnership with the rights owner for ESL One in Katowice.
The spot tells a story about two so-called ‘creeps’, with whom the Dota 2 heroes can interact and compete with and includes a high-speed chase through the eSports metropolis.
While the premium auto brand’s iconic three-pointed star logo was omnipresent during the games, the brand was also name-checked by the tournament announcer during the competition.
Thanks for supporting pro @DOTA2 @MercedesBenz, I'm enjoying #ESLOneHamburg2017 immensely, but this logo just doesn't work @ESLDota2 pic.twitter.com/4TLsl2oDTS
— Danijel Cvetković (@the_datZee) October 27, 2017
On the ground, Mercedes also held a hospitality event around the competition gave away free espresso shots in its sponsor tent and provided a fleet of cars for the competitors, VIPs and for test drives.
Plus a set of eight branded Mercedes-Benz vehicles (each bearing the logos and colours of the individual teams) were parked permanently parked outside the venue, while each team’s entrance to the stage was accompanied by pre-roll film of them driving up to the Barclaycard Arena in a Merc.
While the brand also ran a paid social campaign that saw multiple posts appear on Reddit comparing the brilliance of the players, heroes and the event to the Mercedes-Benz E-Class Sedan (followed by a lengthy copy-paste of the car-model’s press release).
“The fact that our partner Mercedes-Benz now awards a vehicle to the MVP for already the second time following the event in Hamburg in 2017 makes us at ESL very proud,” said Ralf Reichert, founder and CEO of organiser ESL (Electronic Sports League).
“The ongoing engagement of Mercedes-Benz shows the strong commitment of the premium brand to play an active part in eSports and the community further on. We are very happy that we succeeded to get a global brand of this magnitude enthusiastic about the industry,”
Comment
Mercedes-Benz has been activating in the eSports space since it signed on as a sponsor of Dota 2 back in 2017 (alongside fellow ESL big brand partner Intel), but this campaign marks a significant spike in its activity.
The tie-up aims to tap into the growing eSports demographic’s much documented disposable income.
This eSports activation is actually a sub-section of the new Mercedes-Benz global, multi-strand ‘Grow Up’ marketing initiative, launched in early 2017, that addresses the evolution of luxury and life with a campaign exploring what it means to grow up in the modern world.
Developed in harness with creative agency Antoni GmbH, the big idea behind this ambitious content –led marketing initiative sees that brand tackle the evolution/revolution in growing up in the contemporary world.
The campaign, which revolves around a digital hub, is all about reinterpreting traditional values (and attitudes towards Mercedes) to demonstrate the brand’s modern relevance within generations X and Y.
Essentially it aims to invite and support viewers/users to help re-write life’s unwritten rules.
This project kicked off with a trailer fronted by rapper A$AP Rocky that begins “As you get older, life becomes all about following a few simple rules”.
This was followed by a series of five films exploring various rules for adulthood and how far they are changing for the brand’s new, upwardly mobile, aspirational young adult target market.
These videos follow the diverse stories, and which feature other stars from different spaces (included actors Lucy Walters, Julia Morrison, Anna Zahn and John Rue), also include ‘Be a Good Parent’,
‘Settle Down’,
and ‘Start a Family’.
“‘Grow Up’ is much more than a major campaign about model series,” says Mercedes-Benz’s vp of marketing, Dr. Jens Thiemer.
“It is a further move forward by the brand as a whole toward more modernity, progressivism and dynamism across the entire brand identity of Mercedes-Benz.”
This is a messy area for a brand to jump into and we can only say that Mercedes’ marketers are pretty brave to dive in head first.
After all, advertisers tend to like clarity and only to ask questions they already know the answers to (partly because it has such a short time to communicate).
Links:
Mercedes
https://twitter.com/MercedesBenz
https://www.facebook.com/MercedesBenz
https://www.instagram.com/mercedesbenz/
https://www.youtube.com/user/MercedesBenzTV
Antoni GmbH
ESL
https://www.youtube.com/user/esltv
