Company Background

Mercedes-Benz is a global automobile manufacturer which is a manufacturer of

automobiles, motor vehicles, and engines in German. Not only that, it is a division of the
Daimler AG company. The headquarters of Daimler Corporate is located in Stuttgart, Germany.
Besides that, the company was founded by Karl Benz, Emil Jellinek, Gottlieb Daimler and
Wilhelm Maybach in 1965. Their production facilities were allocated in 17 countries on 5
continents. On the other hand, there are a lot of technical innovations which are standard
automotive features today were first seen in a Mercedes-Benz car. For example, crumple zone
which innovated in 1959, airbags in 1980 and many other features in passenger vehicle
technology. It could be say that Mercedes-Benz vehicles played an important part as they were
the innovators in the history of car.

The origin company was born when Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach of
Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft (founded 1890) and Karl Benz of Benz & Cie (founded 1883)
were signed an agreement of Mutual Interest on 1st May 1924. Until 28 June 1926, the brand
name of Mercedes-Benz only born when Benz & Cie and Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft AG
officially compound together and become Daimler-Benz.

(https://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/about_us/companyinfo)

Ownership
 Brand Portfolio

Mercedes-Benz

Hatchback Saloon Estate

SUVs Coupe & Cabriolet
CLA Shooting Roadster
A-Class C-Class Saloon
Brake GLA CLA Coupe
SLC
B-Class S-Class Saloon
C-Class Estate GLC C-Class Coupe
SL
E-Class Saloon GLE
E-Class Estate C-Class Cabriolet
Mercedes-AMG
Mercedes- GLE Coupe
CLS Shooting E-Class Coupe GT Coupe
Maybach S-
Class Brake GLC Coupe CLS Coupe
V-class GLS S-Class Coupe
The new E- G-Class S-Class Cabriolet
Class All-
Terrain

Figure 1: Mercedes-Benz Product Portfolio

Mercedes-Benz has a wide range of product line to satisfy the different needs and wants of
their targeted customers with shown in the figure 1.

Hatchback- Compact car that suits the requirements of city driving – small, compact, easy
maneuvering

Saloon – A car that fulfill the needs of normal usage as such fetching 5 persons and
accomplish daily tasks.

Estate – A longer version of saloon cars that is suitable for family oriented consumers as they
are have bigger boot space, practical

SUV – A type of car that fits the requirements of consumers that wishes to go off-roading, or
rough roads or terrains.
Coupe – Target consumers are usually wealthier and seeks the need of a better driving
performance or sportiness

Roadster – Consumers usually seeks a weekend relaxing drive and with a sporting driving
dynamics and with the roof off.
Marketing Mix of Mercedes-Benz

Product

Mercedes-Benz is one of the company which dominating premium car brands in the
vehicle market. The company offers various series of passenger cars, heavy and light
commercial vehicles as their marketing mix product strategy. On the other hand, Mercedes-
Benz also provides a series of luxury cars as their strength in their product portfolio. For
instance, sport cars, Sedans and SUVs. Not only that, the company launch a wide series of
roadsters and cabriolets such as SLC, SL and so on. Therefore, Mercedes-Benz has a broad
range of product line which can serve various needs and wants of their customers.

Price

Mercedes-Benz is considered one of the expensive luxury car brand in the automobile
market. Because of the company is targeting luxury segment, they are more focusing on the
product quality more than their pricing strategy and so this the reason that why their products
are on the higher end products. It could be say that it is very attractive for the customers who
concern the product quality more than the price such as Apple which focus on their standard
of product quality instead of pricing strategy. The price range that set by the company is
between RM 200,000 to RM600,000 and above in Malaysia. Therefore, the pricing strategy
of the company is setting at a premium pricing in order to provide luxury features and
compete among their competitors.

Place

Mercedes-Benz has a wide structure of retailers which allocate in every different

country to distribute its products. The major markets of Mercedes-Benz are Asia pacific,
China, Germany, Europe and so on. It could be say that it distributes their product all across
the world to allow them easily to deliver their product information and services to their
consumers. On the other hand, Internet is a common tool to deliver and receive information
in this generation. In this way, Mercedes-Benz created their own official website to allow
potential customers to get the product information easily when they are considering or
comparing the high-involvement products.
Promotion

Mercedes-Benz conducts a lot of aggressive promotion strategy that make their

products become more appealing. The company uses traditional promotional strategy which
they fully utilized those media channels like TV, Online, billboards, magazine and so on to
promote their products. However, Mercedes-Benz also focus on their product quality to get
the positive word of mouth between the customers. In this way, customers will be the
supporter of their company as they will share their post-purchase experience to their friends
and family. Not only that, they strengthen their brand awareness through customer centric
activities such as Mercedes trophy. The company also conducts various driving show such as
International driving platform, Luxe drive and so on to promote how well are their products
can serve their customers better. On the other hand, the company also promote their products
in some certain famous shopping mall such as Sunway Pyramid to increase their product
appearance. It allows their customers to experience their product quality directly instead of
only show in the media. In this way, their products will become more charming and generate
more potential customers in the future.

http://www.mbaskool.com/marketing-mix/products/16988-mercedes-benz.html
Competitors Analysis

Bayerische Motoren Werke (BMW) is one of Germany successful automobile

manufacturers in the world. It was founded in 1916. It has three different premium brands in
the vehicle industry which are BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce. They set the highest standards
of technology, development and quality in order to produce better products to serve the
luxury segment. Therefore, it is a direct competitor to Mercedes-Benz in the market as they
are targeting the same market segment.

BMW offers more fuel efficient vehicles to satisfy the consumers’ demands in the
market. They launch small automobiles which are fuel efficient such as the 1-series, compact
X3 SUV and Mini Cooper. Not only that, the company also produce two Active E 100%
electric concepts which are i3 and i8. These market strategies had been growth their net sales
which lead their market share had been increased in the luxury vehicle market. In this way,
Mercedes-Benz lost a lot of market share that allow them to achieve better scale in its
operations and improve profitability.

https://lawaspect.com/bmw-competitive-analysis/

BMW is also a strong advertiser to promote their own products. They not only use the
social media such as TV, radio, Internet and so on to advertise their products. BMW is also a
strong sponsorship for various racing events and sports events. Not only that, the company
has been participating in different international rally races for a long time. They achieved as
successful team at the F1 races on many occasion. In this way, they have a stronger brand
awareness and positive feedback than Mercedes-Benz by their promotion strategy. In this
case, Mercedes-Benz may lost their scales when competing with BMW.
http://www.mbaskool.com/marketing-mix/products/16810-bmw.html

On the other hand, Audi is a German vehicle company that produce luxury cars. It is a
part of Volkswagen Group. Beside that, the company has a wide product range and its
automobile are developing rapidly due to the technological changes. For example, A series
(A1, A3, A4, A6, A8), Q series (Q3, Q5, Q7), TT and so on.

Audi has a more attractive brand name compare to Mercedes-Benz. According to

Unmetric, Audi has 6.4 million online fans and followers which more than Mercedes-Benz
which is only has 1.3 million. It could be say that Mercedes-Benz still lacks of online fans
and followers compared to the Audi. Not only that, Audi is more appealing than Mercedes-
Benz on Youtube as 24k users for Audi and 10k users for Mercedes Benz. The worldwide
interest of Audi on Youtube searches is 85 which more than Mercedes-Benz which is only 60
in 2013. It is obvious that Audi has higher number of video posted, users and searches which
compare to Mercedes-Benz.

http://dasauto-skema.blogspot.my/2013/12/audi-vs-mercedes-digital-race.html

http://dasauto-skema.blogspot.my/2013/11/brand-extension-audi-vs-mercedes-
benz.html