Five G-Wagons are purposefully perched across the world

Mercedes-Benz has installed a series of art displays in cities across the world showcasing its new G-Class sport utility vehicle (SUV). The displays have popped up in Rome, Shanghai, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Atlanta, Georgia over the last few weeks.

Newsweek was on-hand at the debut of the Atlanta installation. The Mercedes-Benz Stadium location was chosen because of the stadium’s hosting duties for major sports tournaments over the next year, Mercedes-Benz Chief Marketing Officer Melody Lee told Newsweek.

In addition to being home to the Atlanta United Major League Soccer team and Atlanta Falcons National Football League team, the stadium will host numerous consequential college football games: the SEC Championship on December 7, Cricket Celebration Bowl (December 14), Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl (January 1) and the 2025 College Football National Championship (January 25).

The display features a replica of a mountain climb with the battery-electric G 580 in First Edition form (MSRP: $179,750) wearing a South Sea Blue Magno paint job perched on a 100-percent incline, highlighting the vehicle’s off-roading chops.

The installation is part of the luxury automaker’s push to market the redesigned G-Class. In a sit-down with Newsweek earlier this year, Bettina Fetzer, Vice President of Communications and Marketing at Mercedes‐Benz AG, explained the company’s two goals for the electric G-Wagen’s campaign plan: “First of all, we create a big buzz because the G-Class is going electric. It’s something that people have been wanting for a long time. So, in the communications world, as you say, if you cut through the noise, then you made it.”

The second goal is to make people say, “Okay this is the real G … If people look at it, if people drive it and say, ‘Okay, this is insanely great, this is everything I was expecting from energy, then I think we also eliminate struggles,” she said.
Mercedes-Benz has changed it marketing message tremendously in the past few years, changing from traditional vehicle advertisements and activations to focus on how their loyalists and potential customers will live with their new vehicle.

Fetzer cited the changing attitudes of key Mercedes-Benz audiences as the reason for the change. “A couple of years ago … you did a few ads and billboards … Now people are constantly under the fire of impressions. [The] second phenomenon we’re looking at is that the consumer is also changing a lot. Gen Z has grown into becoming a luxury customer, right? We know that 75 percent of the Gen Z generation, they look at brands in a different way – they want to have brands that are very authentic, that that appeal to their value set,” she said.

Gen Z’s influence on the market will be growing in the coming years, Fetzer commented. “They’re already now dominating the buying market … Predictions [are] that [by] 2040, 80 percent of the market will be below 40 years old … We need to speak to those consumers in a different way, in an authentic way.”

Gen Z – those born between 1997 and 2012 – is a target market for the G-Class. That generation is spending out on luxury goods and travel, visiting destinations like Rome, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Atlanta, and Shanghai, among others, and using social media channels to explore their potential acquisitions and destinations before deciding to purchase or visit.

Digital and experiential campaigns are important ways to reach Zoomers. According to the Sprout Social 2024 Social Media Content Strategy Report, 91 percent of Gen Z social media users are on Instagram and 86 percent are on TikTok. Displays like the G-Class pop-ups allow for the creation of moments on those platforms by users, in addition to brands.