Mercedes Benz - Story of a thousand hours

It took dozens of prototypes, hundreds of crash simulations, thousands of hours of painstaking craftsmanship and an infinite reserve of patients to create something that looks, drives and thinks like nothing else on the road. This was the description that got me interested in taking a closer look at Mercedes Benz, a name that is rightfully linked to impeccable car designs.Show more

Many other names are manufacturing impeccable designs, but what’s so special about Mercedes Benz, is the power of its storytelling. Watching their commercials, you can undoubtedly say that Mercedes Benz deeply cares about the kind of stories which are portraying an incredible image for the cars it designs.

Inevitably, there have been a few mediocre stories now and then, but nothing too intense that would rub off all the great stories they’ve told so far.

So what drives Mercedes Benz to strive for great storytelling when clearly we live in a world where a lot of brands simply reach the top of the food chain with their messy stories and mediocre concepts?

The answer lies in the life journey of the two men who found Mercedes Benz, Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz. Although the two men never met each other, on June 28 1926, their respective companies that the two men helped ushered to greatness, agreed to sign a contract of merger and introduce to the world a new juggernaut in the making.

You see, Gottlieb and Benz were intense creative thinkers who just couldn’t imagine about anything other than the ideas for cars and how they can not only raise the bar, but completely crush it. But in doing so, they faced numerous challenges from the companies they worked at and the companies they would go on to establish themselves.

In the middle of 1883, Karl Benz was forced by the banks to incorporate his very first company due to its high production costs after which he was left with a share of five percent and the position of a director. But the worst thing happening to him was that his ideas were not being considered with the designs for new products which led to his frustration followed by his resignation from the company he himself built.

When a similar scenario happened to Gottlieb and he had no choice but to incorporate his company called DMG, he tried to gain majority control of the company’s direction but failed. This led to him selling out his shares and resigning from his own company as well.

After Benz’s resignation, his lifelong hobby of bicycles led him to meet the two owners of a little bicycle shop and from there they decided to launch a new company for manufacturing automobiles called Benz & Cie. From that point and onwards it was pretty much success and accomplishments down the road for Karl Benz as he would go on to establish another company side by side called Benz Sohne.

As for Gottlieb, after he resigned from his company, he designed a new kind of an engine with the help of a collaborator that would go on to beat DMG’s cars in a race from Paris to Rouen. After the defeat, Gottlieb was offered a heavyweight position back into the company he built which he accepted along with 200,000 gold marks in shares.

These two men were intellectual fighters with all their battles being about coming up with great ideas and having the control to make sure those ideas see the light of the day.

The storytellers at Mercedes Benz clearly understand what Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler stood for and what image they meant to portray to the world about their psychology, mind and ideas. These storytellers took that image and successfully portrayed about how Mercedes Benz is unstoppable in crazy weathers and how nothing would make a driver more faithful to its car than a car more faithful to its driver.

These stories are not just creative concepts out of the imagination of the storytellers at Mercedes Benz, but these are little pieces and fragments out of the imagination that belonged to the founders of Mercedes Benz. If you understand what the storytellers are trying to say, you will understand the vision that revolutionizes an industry forever.

Watching the commercials by Mercedes Benz completely blew my mind. With the exception of few, they were beautifully written and perfectly executed. The power of these stories led me to the roots of Mercedes Benz which led me to admiring and look up to two new figures from the history. So if you’re a story lover, I definitely recommend checking out the history of Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler.

Until then, if you liked this video, be sure to share this with your friends and subscribe to my channel (https://goo.gl/cpdl88) so you can stay tuned to some storytelling goodness every now and then. In the hopes of connecting with story lovers all over the world, this is Mr. Zeecon, in the making of a great story.
www.zeeconstory.com