Mercedes Benz USA: High Performance in High Def

Mercedes Benz USA High Performance in High Def
Zero to 20 in seven minutes.

Those are not numbers you'd typically associate with Mercedes-Benz's flagship S-Class line of luxury automobiles.

In fact the stat tracks yet another instance of world-beating S-Class performance.

Not for acceleration, but for market uptake - in this case, the purchase of 20 special limited edition versions of the $145,000 Mercedes-Benz S600, sold exclusively through the Saks Fifth Avenue Holiday Catalog, in just 6 minutes and 51 seconds.

To establish that kind of marketing traction, Mercedes-Benz USA (MBUSA) introduces each new S-Class model with a complementary rollout of compelling high-definition video for dealer events, auto shows, and television, which are then repurposed for training and learning on the web and in the dealerships.

And for its latest S-Class model, the S550, the company generated and post-produced all of that HD video in-house on a battery of Macs running Xsan and Final Cut Studio.

"Mercedes-Benz is seen as a technology leader," says Rick Thomas, Digital Media manager at MBUSA.

"Our customers expect it in our vehicles, and they look for it in our communications as well.

So we do a tremendous amount of high-def video. And we always get a great reaction.

The image is so sharp and clear, when they look at the display it's almost as if our customers are