Why Mercedes-Benz ditched the corporate stereotype to get the most from its marketers
Mercedes-Benz UK marketing director shares how new ways of working are helping the luxury car brand improve creativity and why innovation comes from people saying ‘yes’ more than they say ‘no’.
When you picture what it’s like to work for Mercedes-Benz images of sharp suits, expensive accessories and tight timekeeping might be what springs to mind. But over the past two years the UK arm of the brand has been on a mission to loosen things up with flexible working and a relaxed dress-code now characterising the environment.
“There is a certain image [for Mercedes-Benz] of a German automotive company that does not fit with how we’ve been trying to work,” explains the carmaker’s UK marketing director Rob Halloway.
In order to get the most from its marketing and creative teams, the luxury car brand has developed an environment that “allows people to be themselves at work, so you don’t have to fit a corporate stereotype”, he says.
Halloway explains: “Over the past two or three years the rules that were previously sacrosanct [have changed]. It used to be a place of suits and business wear and now it’s a place where people can be themselves. There is a lot more variety for how people present themselves and also how they behave.”
