Title	MERCEDES-BENZ AMG VRACE
Brand	MERCEDES-BENZ SPAIN
Product/Service	A45 AMG
Category	A03. Cars & Automotive Products & Services
Entrant	PIXEL AND PIXEL Las Rozas, SPAIN
Idea Creation	PIXEL AND PIXEL Las Rozas, SPAIN
Production	PIXEL AND PIXEL Las Rozas, SPAIN

Name	Company	Position
Victor Coello	Pixel and Pixel	Eecutive Creative Director
Oscar Moreno	Pixel and Pixel	Creative Director
Lucas Sanchez	Pixel and Pixel	Head of Art
Roberto Torres	Pixel and Pixel	Head od Emerging Experiences
Adrian Leon	Pixel and Pixel	Account Director
Luis Avilés	Pixel and Pixel	CTO
Juan Antonio Gallardo	Pixel and Pixel	Front Developer
Nacho Torres	Pixel and Pixel	Developer

The Campaign

We all want to drive a great sports car at least once. But we would normally have to choose between driving it to the limit in a closed, somehow unreal racetrack or doing it as you’d drive any normal car in the city (boring!). Thanks to Mercedes-Benz there’s no need to choose: through virtual reality and real life driving, you can enjoy a sports car experience in a real city: Madrid. AMG VRace combined VR and real world sports car driving like it was never done before. We created a virtual experience by which lucky fans as well as tech and motor sports influencers experienced the A45 AMG in a racetrack as if they were racing through Madrid. They lived the actual sound, acceleration, skidding and speed of the real A45 AMG, but felt it as if they in downtown Madrid

Campaign Success

First, we mapped the Jarama racetrack considering all variables: fast areas, curves, slopes, etc. Second, we paired each part of the racetrack with Madrid streets so the real and virtual parts were consistent (you don’t want to be each part of the racetrack with Madrid streets so the real and virtual parts were consistent (you don’t want to be speeding up to 250 Km/h in a 20 mt street or going straight when seeing a 90º left curve in your glasses). Third, we video recorded the selected Madrid streets. Finally, we stitched everything together in a VR software where the virtual drive through Madrid would adapt in speed and placement to which was actually happening in the car while doing the racetrack. Phases: 1.Brand fans contest. 2.Call to influencers. 3.Experience day. 4.Media repercusion. The work was placed online on own platforms and social media as well as influencers accounts.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

The campaign had more than 56,6 MM impacts overall. • Our influencers reached + 290,000 people and got a 7% interaction rate (+25% over automotive benchmark). They also made it possible that the AMG VRace experience were watched more than 114,000 times on Mercedes-Benz’s YouTube channels. • We reached + 5,5 million unique users on social media with a 15% interaction rate (+41% vs. Automotive benchmark). • We got 10% of complete views, 50% higher than Publicis Benchmark, and we drove more than 1% of users to the web site, where they could participate in the amazing brand experience (+80% vs. Publicis benchmark). • We launched more than 44 million impressions through our propietary content

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

The AMG VRAce brought lo life an experience that’s at the core of the Mercedes-Benz brand: enjoying the drive of a sports car in a racetrack. But it didn’t end up there: it enhanced and pushed the experience further by putting together the actual drive and VR. Yes, brand fans and influencers were phisically in a racetrack but felt as if they were driving through Madrid at 250 Km/h. A real and virtual mix to live an experience that would never be possible without those two factors combined.

It’s not possible to get everyone in our target audience (brand fans and potential buyers focused on tech and sports cars driving) to live such an experience, so we had to find ways for people to get to know about it. We had to be present where tech and motor sports content is naturally spread. But we also couldn’t leave our fans behind: we opted for putting real fans and influencers in the mix to get the word out: 1. We built a contest in our own media so brand fans could live the AMG VRace experience. 2. We called tech and motor sports influencers to come live the experience so they could talk and write about it first-person in their own media. Then, we used our own social media and branded content to close the circle. We managed to gain media presence and sparked the I-would-have-loved-to-be-there feeling among fans.