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Posted by Dale Buss on October 5, 2011 01:53 PM
Source: http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2011/10/05/Mercedes-Benz-
Readies-Fourth-Quarter-Push-100511.aspx, accessed 6 Ocotber 2011-10-06
True, Mercedes-Benz now trails BMW by about 8,000 vehicles as the two German luxury automakers jockey for designation as the No. 1-selling upscale vehicle retailer in the U.S. market for 2012. The title belonged to Lexus for several years, but
Toyota's gold-standard brand has been working hard to rebound from inventory shortages after the natural disaster in Japan in March.
But Steve Cannon, CMO of Mercedes-Benz USA, told brandchannel he likes where his brand is positioned at the moment. Holding steady at #12 on Interbrand's Best
Global Brands ranking, the company has introduced a half-dozen new or substantially overhauled models into the American marketplace this year.
Mercedes-Benz hasn't yet realized most of the anticipated sales punch from those introductions, because early launches, such as a new CLS sedan and SLK convertible, were relatively low-volume nameplates. The most recent, such as the C-
Class sedans and M-Class SUVs, are higher-volume, bread-and-butter products.
Given that new products typically drive sales increases, Cannon believes that
Mercedes-Benz is sitting pretty heading into 2012.

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"As we go through the fourth quarter, we've got brand-new high-volume products, fresh launch communications in the marketplace, and a good chunk of our media budget left to accomplish that," Cannon commented.
Last year, Mercedes-Benz launched a global "The Best or Nothing" campaign to reinforce its standing as a luxury automaker. Still, Lexus looms, determined to begin regaining what it has lost. Because of its "re-entry"
— and a softening US economy and stock markets that are battering luxury buyers as well as other Americans —
Cannon expects upscale brands to incentivize like crazy in the fourth quarter, at higher levels than so far this year.
"Everyone will try to make their numbers in the fourth quarter because they started the year with higher production plans than the sales that the market has given them so far," Cannon said. "We understand that it's a very competitive marketplace.
Everyone's going to be weighing in. Our strategy is to remain competitive."
Interview with Mao Jingbo, Vice President and Head of Marketing, Mercedes-
Benz
"Since the invention of the first automobile by Mercedes-Benz 125 years ago, the automobile has been influencing all aspects of society, culture, and business. 'The best or nothing' exemplifies MercedesBenz’s commitment to perfection, fascination, and responsibility."
As we know, Mercedes-Benz launched a new global campaign called “the best or not hing” last year. How do you think the campaign differentiates your brand from others? How is it relevant to your target audience?
Since the invention of the first automobile by Mercedes-Benz 125 years ago, the automobile has been influencing all aspects of society, culture, and business.
“The best or nothing
” exemplifies Mercedes-Benz’s commitment to perfection, fascination, and responsibility.
Mercedes-Benz defines the industry as the inventor of automobile. Today, you can find a part of Mercedes-Benz
’s original craftsmanship in every automobile. Our confidence and ambition to lead now and in the future differentiates us from other brands. We strive to offer our customers a top experience.
Could you please give us some other examples of campaigns that show your creativity in differentiating the brand —for example, the corporate citizenship initiatives?

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Mercedes-Benz's leadership in the Chinese market is also a kind of innovation. Our
10-year title-sponsorship with the Mercedes-Benz Arena is a culmination of all the efforts of our marketing team.
In 2011, the Mercedes-Benz Arena was officially renamed. This inaugural event marked the first ever entertainment arena outside Germany named after Mercedes-
Benz. It is also the first sports and entertainment arena named after it in China.
Mercedes-Benz Arena stands for an entirely new world-leading cultural center. More importantly, this stands for Mercedes-Benz ’s long-term support and commitment to the development of China ’s cultural, art and sports sectors, as the world-leading luxury car manufacturer.
We are very proud of our achievements in China. As an innovative brand, we are confident that we will bring innovative marketing campaigns to China.
Do you have any significant co-branded products or partnerships in the past year that helped tie into the larger brand strategy of both brands? How will the two brands work together? Does this face any challenges related to your business?
We partner with only the best to offer an exceptional and unrivalled experience to our customers.
In November 2007, Mercedes-Benz officially became the first ever strategic partner of the National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPA). This partnership between two industry leaders originated from their love for the arts. The collaboration also reflects
NCPA and Mercedes-Benz
’s endless pursuit of innovation and perfection. In three short years, the NCPA has joined the world ’s top art centers. It has become a place that the world ’s top performing artists dream of. Both sides have continued their partnership into 2011. For the next three years, Mercedes-Benz will further its cooperation with the NCPA to bring the arts to the Chinese audience.
In the future, we will continue to cooperate with China's leading platform to bring the highest brand experience to our customers.
Your advanced environmental protection technology,
“BlueEFFICIENCY,” was highly commended in last year
’s “Best Global Brands” report. How is this environmental strategy going? How do you seamlessly integrate this technology into the lives of the consumers, and how is the technology improving society?
As always, Mercedes-Benz is dedicated to the development of new environmental technologies such a s “BlueEFFICIENCY” and the technology of our electric cars, which represent Mercedes-Benz
’s cutting-edge environmental philosophy.
With a growing number of environmentally compatible BlueEFFICIENCY vehicles, we are offering a broad selection of premium vehicles that combine economic and environmental responsibility with safety, comfort, and refined driving pleasure.

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Beyond the current advanced BlueEFFICIENCY, Mercedes-Benz will continue to relentlessly strive to achieve its ultimate goal of zero-emission mobility.
In short, we are not only providing customers with more comfortable and safer driver and passenger experiences, but we are also committed to creating entirely new low- carbon ways of travelling, for environmental protection is our personal responsibility and this is the real-world definition of “fascination and responsibility.”
The concept of consistent innovation has been embodied at times, starting from the moment when Karl Benz, the co-founder of Mercedes-Benz, announced “The love of inventing never d ies” as a requirement to himself, to the time when Dr. Dieter
Zetsche, Chairman of Daimler AG and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars, said “Vive la
Révolution!” at 2010 Paris Autoshow.
What is the main challenge of your brand? Could you please offer one piece of advice to the companies facing similar challenges as yours?
Being the leader in the automotive industry, we believe that there are more opportunities than challenges. As a luxury brand, how do we maintain a halo effect of being admired and being approachable at the same time? Tha t’s one big challenge we set for ourselves.
My answer is that we certainly can strike a perfect balance in between and tha t’s exactly the art and science of marketing.
For those companies facing similar challenges, my advice is to think beyond the product!
Customers are demanding more in this Marketing 3.0 era. Besides products, think about what other benefits our customers can get. For smart companies, the focus of marketing should be shifted from our products to our customers and finally to the emotional connection between the products and the customers themselves. So it is quite a must to leverage all resources to bring to them multidimensional values, in other words: Think always about the custome rs’ welfare!
Only with the customer s’ welfare always in mind can we maintain a cutting edge in all competition.
ABOUT MAO JINGBO
Source: http://www.daimler.com/company/strategy/strategic-focus-areas
Ms. Mao Jingbo, Vice President and Head of Marketing of Mercedes-Benz (China), is responsible for marketing and brand communication for the Mercedes-Benz brand in mainland China. Ms. Mao is an expert authority on marketing, brand management, international communication, public relations, corporate social responsibility, and

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China International Public Relations Association.
Shortly after joining Mercedes-Benz in August 2007, Ms. Mao spearheaded “Brand
Rejuvenation
” to restore the image of Mercedes-Benz as a young and dynamic brand. The campaign promoted Mercedes-Benz as a brand with fascinating and rich values. As a result, sales growth in China rapidly increased. Brand Rejuvenation is now in its second phase, where Ms. Mao will lead a team in building consumer confidence and loyalty as well as passion for the Mercedes-Benz brand. Through this initiative, Mercedes-Benz will engage in deep conversation with the target audience, maintaining Mercedes-Benz ’s leadership in the automotive industry.
Source:://www.interbrand.com/en/best-global-brands/Best-Global-Brands-2011/
Brands by Sector, Automotive

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Source:://www.interbrand.com/en/best-global-brands/Best-Global-Brands-2011/
Brands by Sector, Automotive
Strategic Focus Areas
Excellent products offering superior customer experience form the basis for our success .
With new products, which set standards in their respective segments, we want to further strengthen and extent our market position. As ever, our main goal is to be
Number 1 in terms of customer satisfaction. We place high priority on our activities directed at improving product and service quality as well as on providing a range of services appropriate to our custome rs’ needs.

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Leading brands contribute towards the Daimler Group
’s longterm success. The
Mercedes-Benz brand is one of the most successful and well-known brands in the world. We intend to maintain and extend this position also in the future. At the same time, we want to develop and sharpen the brand positions of the further brands of the group.
Innovation and technology leadership. We want to be the innovation leader for green technologies and safety. As for green technologies, we pursue three different drivesystem solutions: the optimization of internal-combustion engines, hybridization and locally emission free drivesystems powered battery- electric or by fuel cell. We also intend to further strengthen our pioneering role in the fields of active and passive safety for cars and commercial vehicles. With new business ideas such as car2go and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), we are pursuing innovative mobility concepts and business models to fulfill custome rs’ needs and to utilize additional growth potential..
Global presence and networking. Our goal as a company is to continue our profitable growth and to be among the best in the industry: in our core business, in traditional and new markets. In particular in the rapidly growing markets of China, India, Russia and Brazil, we are intensifying our local activities by establishing and developing local production and sales operations, to some extent together with local partners. If required, we meet regionally different customer needs by locally adapted products.
Operational excellence and sustainability. We achieve operational excellence by means of efficiency targets and related programs in the areas of production, development, sales and administration. This is based on a culture of excellence. By means of standardization and modularization, we can significantly enhance efficiency with new products, new technologies and new processes. We are improving our cost position with support from cooperations, for example with Renault-Nissan.
We have a clear claim to leadership also in the field of sustainability. On the one side, sustainability is focussed on environmental protection with production and products. On the other side, it is about long-term job protection, responsible suppliers, intact relations with society, and transparent communication.
We aim to have high-performing, inspired employees who direct their actions towards our corporate values and maintain the highest ethical standards. The new Board of
Management position for Integrity and Legal Affairs has the task of ensuring that rules and regulations and the highest ethical standards are anchored within the organization.
Ultimately, we will grow profitably by consistently implementing the strategies derived from our target system. For all our activities, the focus is on
 strengthening the core business,
 growing further in new markets,
 maintaining a leading position with “green” technologies, and playing a leading part in the development of new mobility concepts and services.
Ambitious return targets. We have set ourselves clear return targets. As of 2013, we aim to earn an average return on sales of 9% in our automotive business across all market and product cycles
.

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Daimler Brands
The Daimler brand range comprises the brands Mercedes-Benz, smart, Maybach,
Freightliner, Mitsubishi Fuso, Western Star, Setra, Orion, and Thomas Built Buses. In addition, Daimler Financial Services is active in the fields of financing, leasing, insurance, and fleet management.
Daimler distributes its products and services in almost every country of the world.
With production locations on five continents and with some 7,300 sales outlets worldwide, the company is never far from its customers. Daimler sold 2.1 million vehicles in 2008.
Mercedes-Benz Cars
Daimler Trucks
Mercedes-Benz Vans

Daimler Buses
Daimler Financial Services
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Mercedes-Benz
– The best or nothing.
The name Mercedes-Benz stands for a successful past and a trailblazing future of mobility. It's for very good reason that the world's most valuable premium car brand comes from the inventors of the automobile. The three-pointed star, the Mercedes-
Benz trademark, is a symbol of quality, safety and refined motoring on highways and byways. For over 100 years Mercedes-Benz has been convincing people with up-to- date design and forward-looking innovations.
Please click on the pictures to enlarge.
Mercedes-Benz plays a pioneering role particularly in the field of safety technology.
Many innovative visions which were first made reality in a car from Mercedes-Benz deeply influence the entire development of the automobile to this day. They include the anti-lock braking system (ABS, 1978), the airbag (1980) and the Electronic
Stability Program (ESP
®, 1995). Today, Brake Assist Plus with PRE-SAFE Brakes, the drowsiness detector ATTENTION ASSIST, the Blind Spot Assist, the Lane
Keeping Assist and many other assistance systems make the car models from
Mercedes-Benz the safest automobiles in the world.

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Mercedes-Benz develops new models with great love for detail. And brings excitement and responsibility together over and over again. BlueEFFICIENCY stands for Mercedes-Benz's comprehensive understanding of ecology: the new S 400
HYBRID features the world's first production hybrid drive system with lithium-ion battery and is currently the most economical gasoline-powered luxury sedan. The currently cleanest diesel technology in the world finds use in the E 350 BlueTEC. The new B Class F CELL makes do entirely without mineral fuels; it will be available in a small series for the first time beginning in 2010. In addition, Mercedes-Benz makes a broad range of BlueEFFICIENCY models available right now.
Basis of the market success of Mercedes-Benz is an exciting model range. Elegant sedans, comfortable station wagons, sporty cabriolets or powerful off-roaders round off the Mercedes-Benz product portfolio. From A- to S Class, from the volume models like the new E-Class introduced in 2009 to the new Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, the
Mercedes-Benz models are leaders in their respective market segments.

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