Mercedes abyss - 2014 & Ciro's Comedian Backalley

[FoxHound]

Ahhhhaaaa as Mr Alan Partridge would say, Mr Christian Sylt. At it again I see.
http://www.pitpass.com/52739/Mercedes-s ... ecord-325m

So this is where the figures emanate from.

The costs of Mercedes F1 team are partly offset by sponsorships and prize money[...] Nevertheless, the team still made a loss of £51.1 million

Mercedes make 10 billion a year, and the cost of winning is 51 million?

This thread has run its course.

[xpensive]

a perfect example of how winning championships is used to sell cars is this Inifiniti Commercial.

http://www.ispot.tv/ad/7M4f/infiniti-in ... ian-vettel

Are you for real, do you seriously believe that Infinity sold more cars every time Vettel won last year because of a sticker,
I know that some people in Nort Carolina though that Dale Earnhart actually drove a Chevrolet Monte Carlo, but come on?

@Fox; Savour this moment now, even if it comes at a time when most people just don't care about Formula 1 anymore.

[GitanesBlondes]

I like how some people in this topic get bent out of shape and are mad I made a lot of good points regarding the marketing aspect of F1 for manufacturers being a total sham.

Fox, acting as if McLaren was getting the equivalent engines from Mercedes as the works cars was getting is a stretch even for you. It's funny how Ron started talking about the engine maps, then comes Sochi and suddenly the McLaren's seem to be performing better. In an era where everything is homologated and frozen, there is no reason for that to be happening, but when you're paying 20 MEUR for spec engines, and there is no equality, that is a sin.

I hope Ron runs custom McLaren engine maps at the last race just to prove a point.

[dans79]

a perfect example of how winning championships is used to sell cars is this Inifiniti Commercial.

http://www.ispot.tv/ad/7M4f/infiniti-in ... ian-vettel

Are you for real, do you seriously believe that Infinity sold more cars every time Vettel won last year because of a sticker,
I know that some people in Nort Carolina though that Dale Earnhart actually drove a Chevrolet Monte Carlo, but come on?

@Fox; Savour this moment now, even if it comes at a time when most people just don't care about Formula 1 anymore.

I don't really care one way or the other, my point was that someone at Infiniti decided it has enough potential to try it.

[GitanesBlondes]

a perfect example of how winning championships is used to sell cars is this Inifiniti Commercial.

http://www.ispot.tv/ad/7M4f/infiniti-in ... ian-vettel

Are you for real, do you seriously believe that Infinity sold more cars every time Vettel won last year because of a sticker,
I know that some people in Nort Carolina though that Dale Earnhart actually drove a Chevrolet Monte Carlo, but come on?

@Fox; Savour this moment now, even if it comes at a time when most people just don't care about Formula 1 anymore.

I don't really care one way or the other, my point was that someone at Infiniti decided it has enough potential to try it.

There's your problem dans.

You're not here to do anything but whine, carry on, and provide absolutely no facts to back up anything you've said in this topic.

I already told you what causes people to buy specific manufacturers.

It's not F1, and you can believe whatever delusional garbage you want, but the fact remains that's how the real world works. If any manufacturer wants to sell more cars, they should go focus on the dealerships that sell their cars, and ensure customers are getting the best possible experience.

[xpensive]

Without the razzmatazz, glitz and babes, manufacturers and sponsors alike would take off like paychecks.

Never underestimate the personal incentives, like executives going off for a weekend with some glamour.

Sans wives.

[dans79]

There's your problem dans.

You're not here to do anything but whine, carry on, and provide absolutely no facts to back up anything you've said in this topic.

I already told you what causes people to buy specific manufacturers.

It's not F1, and you can believe whatever delusional garbage you want, but the fact remains that's how the real world works. If any manufacturer wants to sell more cars, they should go focus on the dealerships that sell their cars, and ensure customers are getting the best possible experience.

Please excuse me if I don't take your word as gospel!



I think its pretty obvious that various advertising departments think associating their brand with racing helps them sell cars in some fashion. Don't forget air time isn't cheap! I'm sure if I spent more than 10 minutes looking I could find even more manufactures, using their participation in Motorsports to sell the cars, regardless of how relevant the series is to the actual road cars.

ford:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nB9zzdgoLl8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEM39p4B40k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbI9OOevhxs

chevrolet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EqTtR0XUBE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXV2wFmXQAw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNCwscg8lTc

Infiniti:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfExWNIN6jQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJfkDkJiXx0

Mercedes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRTmfwyZgQk
I'm sure we will see a lot more soon

[Moose]

It's not F1, and you can believe whatever delusional garbage you want, but the fact remains that's how the real world works. If any manufacturer wants to sell more cars, they should go focus on the dealerships that sell their cars, and ensure customers are getting the best possible experience.

Alternatively, do what Tesla did. That is, realise that the dealers are the exact problem. The dealers are stuck as middle men with no incentive to improve anything but profits (and that includes the customer's experience of the car). The dealers are in fact the exact problem with the car industry.

[Blanchimont]

During this season and after every GP on Monday, Mercedes thought i was a good idea to advertise on Monday in big German newspapers. They showed ads like the one below covering a whole page and desperately tried to connect F1 and road car technology. If it works for a small amount of the readers to place that idea in their heads...

[xpensive]

Cute and xpected, though I doubt there will be much of an impact from that, but what do you know.

I recall BMW flashing ads in the swedish press in the early 80s; "BMW needs a turbo as much as Concorde needs a propeller"

Gives you a bit of an idea about the connection to formula 1.

[FoxHound]

I like how some people in this topic get bent out of shape and are mad I made a lot of good points regarding the marketing aspect of F1 for manufacturers being a total sham..

You like how some people are getting bent out of shape? Maybe because you "points" are based on Christian Sylt BS.

Let me help you Gitanes. You created the thread on the flawed assumption Mercedes were out of pocket by 500 million.
They are in fact out of pocket 51 million after income has been added. So not an "abyss", merely a puddle.
Do you see your glaring error?

Fox, acting as if McLaren was getting the equivalent engines from Mercedes as the works cars was getting is a stretch even for you. It's funny how Ron started talking about the engine maps, then comes Sochi and suddenly the McLaren's seem to be performing better. In an era where everything is homologated and frozen, there is no reason for that to be happening, but when you're paying 20 MEUR for spec engines, and there is no equality, that is a sin.I hope Ron runs custom McLaren engine maps at the last race just to prove a point.

What is this thread about again?
Mercedes "abyss", or "lets debate customer engine parity"?

This thread is dead as a door-nail, and your last quoted text proves this emphatically.

[CBeck113]

I think that Mercedes' comemrcial success over the past five years (aka since 2009) can be contributed to the fact that they finally began to listen to what their customers want. This has nothing to do with their F1 engagement, nor with their image per se, they simply learned from their mistakes in the 90s (trying to maximalize their profit by saving on development costs and then ignoring their customers when they complained about it). In fact, I believe that the F1 team has managed to blind their board by saying that the current success is the result of F1 (causation vs correlation). Since they have no base line the rest of the company can't argue against them. I also believe that their budget will be cut drastically until the end of the current "freeze", which is why they don't want any change - they will not be able to keep up.
This was a long term investment, but will most likely not be repeated, unless Mr. E "helps" them a bit.

My personal opinion: this entire plan (push with the reg change) was put in place to avoid losing image; the name "Silberpfeil" would have been destroyed if they had jumped ship before winning anything. They know how expensive it can be if their image is damaged. And this is the current problem for marketing F1: there is nothing to gain but much to lose.

[J.A.W.]

Look guys, M-B ( & a disclaimer, yes I own/operate a classy M-B coupe), has always wanted to appear mighty, but aloof..
Even ol' Adolf, a well-known motor-head chose to be driven/seen in a Tri-Star,
& he had ol' man Porsche - as his good buddy - available & keen to build him a state-of-the-art custom-wagen..

So don't you worry .. ja.. alles running to ze geheim plan.. ..alles gut..

[FoxHound]

@Cbeck

And where does this encompass AMG? They had unit sales of around 20k in 2010, that is now circa 35k.
http://www.motorauthority.com/news/1090 ... r-for-2014

AMG has a reputation in Europe and the US, but China and emerging markets don't have the same knowledgeable customer base.
The F1 team is a brand exposure platfrom, and AMG is a sports car company selling performance at a premium.

This is not about Mercedes selling a diesel C-Class, this is all about Mercedes pushing AMG as brand in its own right.

AMG independently engineers, manufactures and customizes Mercedes-Benz AMG vehicles.

To drive home the point, this car does not even have "benz" in the name. Mercedes-AMG GT.



So effectively, Mercedes are launchinga sportscar brand and getting exposure for it, as well as kudos.
How do you quantify this?

[CBeck113]

Their approach to selling AMGs: they took their in-house tuner and made it to a brand. So instead of having a handfull of one-offs they have configurable, comfortable, even luxurious products now (abr the black series - they just brutal!), which are much easier to sell worldwide. In addition, they left the high power market solely to AMG, so there is no internal competition. They are also profiting from Mercedes' strategies, i.e. car design & marketing, so why shouldn't they grow? F1? No, they'll probably be flogging that horse until they fall off their well-deserved throne, but after that their car sales will continue to rise - Mercedes has returned to their old glory, and after accomplishing this truely unbelievable turn-around, are reaping the benefits.