Mercedes-Benz is popping the web page on Jon Hamm’s 15-year run as its model voice, changing the actor with Lucy Liu.
The actor’s voiceover debut is available in a marketing campaign referred to as “Transferring Ahead,” created by Merkley + Companions, which promotes the model’s GLS SUV. The 35-second spot will air throughout linear TV, together with BET, NBC, and TNT, in addition to streaming and digital video, with two further advertisements that includes Liu scheduled to run later this month.
“Mercedes-Benz doesn’t simply outline luxurious, it regularly reimagines it,” Liu shared in a press release. “To lend my voice to a model with such a legacy of excellence and a daring imaginative and prescient for the long run seems like a strong alignment of values and creativity. This partnership displays all the pieces I worth: innovation, intention, and influence. Collectively, we’re constructing a legacy of contemporary luxurious that solely Mercedes-Benz can ship.”
The actress replaces Hamm, who has narrated the model’s advertisements since 2010. Liu was chosen after Mercedes-Benz chief advertising and marketing officer (CMO) Melody Lee, and her crew blindly listened to over 200 voices over a number of months.
“We didn’t know who they had been, what their names had been, [or] whether or not they had been celebrities or not,” she completely instructed ADWEEK. “We simply listened to voices with a number of standards in thoughts as as to whether or not it might assist elevate the model, promote the merchandise, [and] attain new generations.”
New voice, new advertising and marketing period
Altering Mercedes-Benz’s model voice was to “sign a brand new and recent period for the model,” mentioned the exec.
Regardless of tariffs and financial uncertainty, the automotive producer is at the moment centered on rising within the U.S. It has price-locked all of its 2025 automobile fashions in response, and is sustaining all of its advertising and marketing investments for the 12 months.
“It was actually necessary to offer our prospects a way of consistency available in the market, whether or not they’re with us immediately or prospects for the long run,” mentioned Lee, including that the model could make changes because it continues to observe the market.
As a part of its U.S. advertising and marketing playbook, Mercedes-Benz is making range a cornerstone of its inventive course of—each on display and behind the scenes—to make sure its messaging resonates with multicultural Individuals, a demographic that has grown by practically 4 million since 2021, per insights agency Collage Group. The info agency additionally tasks that this group will turn into the bulk by 2050.
Liu’s appointment underscores this technique, alongside initiatives resembling Mercedes-Benz’s partnership with Black-owned golf model Eastside Golf round The Masters and its dinner collection “The Desk,” which introduced Black and Asian American executives and creatives collectively to foster neighborhood and dialog in Los Angeles and New York.
The automaker can also be centered on various staffing and casting in its advertising and marketing throughout its inventive output to replicate the shoppers it desires to succeed in.
“We have to attain present generations who’re shopping for our merchandise as a lot as we have to attain the subsequent generations which are arising,” Lee mentioned. “We [want] to reveal the model to totally different communities, totally different voices, however not simply expose, convey them to the desk.”
By handing Liu the mic, Mercedes-Benz is doing greater than refreshing its sound. It’s charting a path towards a extra inclusive, culturally attuned imaginative and prescient of luxurious and is designed to resonate far past the motive force’s seat.
