As an industry leader, Mercedes-Benz has always known how to stay ahead of the curve by adopting cutting-edge technology like NFTs and is dedicated to providing its customers with not just great automobiles but also great customer service experiences. Read on as we do a deep dive into various ways in which the brand is pioneering the future of digital customer experience by making extensive use of Immersive Experiences and Web3.
3D IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES
They have been particularly successful with adopting 3D technologies into all aspects of their brand, from manufacturing to marketing and sales.Â
Mercedes Joined the Aura ConsortiumÂ
In May 2022, Mercedes-Benz joined Aura Consortium as a fifth founding member, next to LVMH, Prada, Richemont, and OTB to elevate digital luxury to push the customer experience to the next level.Â
âWe are expanding our brand activities to a completely new dimension in digital luxury,â said Bettina Fetzer, Vice President of Communications & Marketing Mercedes-Benz AG.Â
Aura Blockchain Consortium is the first Blockchain Solution made by luxury brands, for luxury brands to develop the applications of blockchain technology in Web3 and improve standards of luxury.
Joining Aura Blockchain Consortium enabled Mercedes-Benz to explore new strategies powered by Blockchain technologies such as deploying Digital Collectibles (NFTs) collections linked to physical products.Â
Virtual Showrooms
Mercedes also pioneered Virtual Showrooms, wherein users could see detailed versions of car models, both internally and externally. These are accessible online and can be accessed with various VR headsets. This helps potential buyers avoid pushy salespeople and enjoy the viewing at their own pace and to their heartâs content. They can also set up meetings with an expert via one-way video conferencing wherein the expert shows them a real-time 360° video of the car model and the purchaser can even request side by side comparison of 2 different models.
âMany people donât want to talk to a bot, they want to talk to a real person,â said Mercedes-Benz Australia spokesman Jerry Stamoulis. âPotential customers were previously doing research and then not going into a dealership. The Digital Showroom encourages them to make their next step.â
Virtual Remote Support
Mercedes-Benz, Canada went one step further and integrated AR-enabled repair solutions to ensure a smooth after-sales experience for the customers. Being used in every one of the brandâs dealerships in the country, it reduces service wait times, cost, and the environmental impact of service-related travel by curtailing the need to fly specialists to different parts of the country for unique and unusual technical issues. A problem that might have taken days of phone calls and emails to sort out, can now be resolved with a 10-minute conversation. âWe save so much time not having to go back and forth, uploading information, asking questions, waiting for a response,â says Matias Scolnik from Shop Foreman, a Mercedes-Benz dealership, in Florida.
This remote support system involves 2 technologies, The Microsoft HoloLens 2 headset and the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist. The HoloLens 2 is an AR headset, which when donned by the local technician, projects vital information like wiring diagrams and schematics and allows the technician to work on them in real-time. The 365 Remote Assist allows him to connect with technical experts on call and have them guide him virtually.
NXT – A WEB3 NFT ECOSYSTEM
For over 130 years, collectors have enjoyed Mercedes-Benz vehicles, model cars, and memorabilia. To extend this collectibility to the digital world, Mercedes-Benz has created an entire web3 ecosystem of its own called Mercedes-Benz NXT and even has a dedicated creative studio for it, in collaboration with Omnicom, called OxNXT.
Mercedesâ diverse portfolio meant that the web3 ecosystem had to be categorized into 3 parts:
Core NFT Collection
These NFTs collections are launched under the Mercedes-Benz umbrella and tell a story; the projects are interrelated and each new launch builds onto the story.Â
Maschine
The first core collection was called Maschine and the artists, Harm Van den Dorpel and Fingerprints DAO, chose motion, velocity, and perception as core themes for this NFT drop. Everyone of 1000 artwork features mesmerizing radial patterns of illusions inspired by the wagon-wheel effect and is Harmâs first full work using a custom neural network, created entirely in 3D.
NXT Icons
These collectible cards are divided into 7 eras that highlight the heritage of the Mercedes-Benz designs. The first era showcases the present-day designs and each new era focuses on a different time in history, going all the way till the start of the automotive company. There will be 2,694 collectibles in each era (except Era 7 which will have 2,696) totaling 18,860 pieces across all seven eras. Each era can be minted during a 90-minute Dutch auction, with the price starting at 1 eth and reducing to 0.1 eth, or until sold out. Unsold items post-auction will be available at a fixed price of 0.1 eth. The rebate Dutch auction, where all participants pay the same, is open to all.
The first era âThe Era of Luxuryâ was released in September 2023 and focused on accentuating Mercedes-Benzâs pioneering spirit, elegance, and value. The drop covered 6 vehicle designs, 9 card special effects, 19 vehicle colors, 10 card fronts, and 18 card back designs. The hype and the demand were so huge that the website crashed due to a huge influx of users.Â
Satellite NFT Collection
Focused on being fun and unique, these collections tend to have shorter scope. They are usually launched in collaboration with others. An example is âWhat is Nature?â, a completed project by the artist Seunghyo Jang, commissioned by Mercedes-Benz Korea. These collections are unrelated to the core collections.
Peripheral NFT Collection
They are third-party projects that make use of the brandâs trademark. They are independent from the automobile manufacturer but sometimes, Mercedes tends to communicate about them to its audience.Â
For example, NF-G, made by ART2PEOPLE, was inspired by the Mercedes-Benz G-Class and used the vehicleâs attributes under fair use. Another project was by the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula ONE Team, wherein the free-to-claim NFT âTicket Stubsâ were artistic interpretations of a Petronas race ticket.
METAV.RS can help your brand connect to a wider set of audience with the launch of your own Gamified Loyalty program powered by Digital Collectibles (NFT), just like it did for Le Bristol and Indosuez. It provides a seamless white-label solution for the brands to enter Web3, including establishing the brandâs own NFT Utility Management platform.
Understand more about how NFTs can be beneficial for your brand:Â NFT Utility & Rewards â The Ultimate Guide to Empower NFTs
