Mercedes' Berlin Fashion Week Film Stars Michel Gaubert & Mini-Me Puppet

German car maker Mercedes-Benz rolled out a wonderfully weird and creatively cool film activating its title sponsorship of Berlin Fashion Week.

The campaign for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Berlin, which runs from 19 to 22 January, focuses on famous fashion show sound director Michel Gaubert and his puppet assistant.

The film features Gaubert – a well known sound director for designers such as Karl Lagerfeld, Oscar de la Renta and Jill Sander – and his comic relationship with his personal puppet assistant.

A puppet mini-me called Petit Michel.

The film features an interview with the pair and follows Gaubert sending his puppet to the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Berlin Autumn/Winter 2016 in his place.

While the real Michel Gaubert cruises around LA in a classic Mercedes-Benz 1970 280SEL.

The Mercedes-Benz endline is: ‘To have your personal Puppet Assistant might be the next big thing to have in fashion’.

And who knows, it just might be.

The creative is amplified across the car brand’s social channels – such as Twitter

Michel Gaubert and hilarious puppet-double cruise around #Venice in a #280SEL. Watch soon on https://t.co/KD3QNffXOV pic.twitter.com/VB6NUz2EYN

— Mercedes-Benz (@MercedesBenz) January 12, 2016

and its website.

As the official vehicle of Fashion Week, Mercedes benefits from heavy presence rights across the event – both on-site, at shows and across the social space (even in other sponsor’s campaigns).

CP Gaba GmbH: Fashion Week Berlin: Gizem Emre zur Fashion Week mit Colgate.. https://t.co/jJMQOnizkh pic.twitter.com/hmZsokaoVW

— presseportal.de (@na_presseportal) January 18, 2016

Comment

This must be one of the most refreshing and bizarre pieces of activation we’ve seen in recent months.

To us it is not just fresh and funny (although we aren’t quite sure why), but also creative.

And surely, after all, brave, original creativity is what fashion week is all about.

It follows in the footsteps of a tactic it first adopted last year, when the luxury auto maker released its creative and comic short film in the week before the models hit the runways in the German capital.

Last year’s stylish sponsorship spot, called ‘A Fistful Of Wolves’, featured the rare Mercedes C111 and fashion store buying director Justin O’Shea of www.mytheresa.com, plus the Chipperfield brothers and fashion editors Veronika Heilbrunner and Julia Knolle (see case study).

Links

Mercedes-Benz YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/user/MercedesBenzTV

Mercedes-Benz Fashion Hub:

http://mbfashionweek.com/

https://www.mercedes-benz.com/de/mercedes-benz/lifestyle/fashion/?csref=_sm:in_fashion_ytb_pc

Mercedes-Benz Website:

https://www.mercedes-benz.com

Mercedes-Benz Twitter:

https://twitter.com/MercedesBenz

Berlin Fashion Week:

http://www.fashion-week-berlin.com/