From Adweek · Dawn Papandrea · · 1m 20s
Mercedes-Benz shifts to emotional storytelling for holidays
Luxury brands are using data to balance festive creativity with year-round brand messaging during peak selling season.
In brief
Luxury brands are using data to balance festive creativity with year-round brand messaging during peak selling season. Holiday campaigns work best when brands embrace emotional storytelling within their core values, then use performance data to refine what resonates. Originally reported by Adweek.
Holiday season opens creative doors
Mercedes-Benz uses the holidays to shift from product features to emotional storytelling, bringing in characters like Santa while staying true to brand pillars of craftsmanship, luxury, innovation, and performance.
“It's an exciting time for us because it opens up different opportunities we normally don't have during the year.”
Balancing emotion with brand strategy
The challenge is protecting long-term brand identity while experimenting with new creative approaches. Success means doing something innovative without jeopardizing core messaging that works year-round.
“Success is protecting that from a long-term strategy standpoint, but also doing something new and innovative.”
Data reveals surprising January performance
When Mercedes-Benz extended a popular December campaign into January, typically a slow month, it achieved nearly identical engagement scores. This insight is reshaping how the brand plans future holiday seasons.
“It was incredible to see that in January we had an Ace score that was almost consistent with what we were seeing in December.”
Finding the right moments to take risks
Mercedes-Benz uses iSpot's creative testing and performance data to identify where it can experiment safely. The brand learns which campaign types work best at different times while maintaining what consistently performs well.
“You can pick the data apart in so many different ways, but we've found where we can be a little bit more risky.”
One campaign can't solve everything
The biggest lesson is that trying to address every brand opportunity in a single campaign dilutes storytelling. Different moments call for different approaches, whether product-focused or emotionally driven.
“You can't solve for every brand opportunity and every business objective in one campaign. If you're doing that, then you're losing part of the storytelling.”
The one thing
Holiday campaigns work best when brands embrace emotional storytelling within their core values, then use performance data to refine what resonates.
