Matthias Schmidt — Managing Creative Director, antoni garage
Matthias talks to TheNextGag about being the agency of record of Mercedes-Benz, the evolution of car marketing and collaborating with A$AP Rocky and Nicki Minaj.
Matthias Schmidt is the Managing Creative Director of antoni garage in Germany.
Matthias Schmidt studied Communications in Social and Economic Contexts at Berlin University of the Arts and started his career in 1998 as copywriter at Scholz & Friends Berlin, going from Senior Copywriter to Creative Director and finally “Family Head” (unit director) later on.
In 2005, Matthias Schmidt was appointed to the Management Board of Scholz & Friends Hamburg and became Executive Board Member of Scholz & Friends Group in 2008.
He joined DDB Berlin as Managing Director in 2012 and was responsible for clients like Volkswagen, Deutsche Telekom and AEG Electrolux.
In June 2015 Matthias Schmidt became antoni’s Managing Creative Director in Berlin.
He got his Master of Business Administration (MBA) at the Berlin School for Creative Leadership and has been a member of the Art Directors Club for Germany since 2001.
Matthias Schmidt has won all major creative awards, including gold, silver and bronze in Cannes, at LIAA, ADC Germany and New York.
TNG: WHAT IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH MERCEDES-BENZ?
MATTHIAS SCHMIDT: We are a tailor-made agency. Antoni was founded exclusively for Mercedes-Benz. And I try to run the show. But we are independent. We don’t belong to Mercedes-Benz like Spark44 to Jaguar.
I worked previously for DDB. And other German agencies. The big difference is: when you just work for one client, you spend all the money the client gives you on the work for the client. We don’t do pitches. Because we just have that one client. But if, as it happens, other brands like our work and the business model, so we are happy to found the next tailor-made agency. And this is what happened last year for German sweets brand Katjes, we founded “antoni jellyhouse” for them.
TNG: IT IS BECOMING A GROUP NOW?
MS: Yes, right. Tailor-made, single-client agencies, each one for an individual client. And this works pretty well. I am so grateful that I don’t have to do pitches anymore, no new business stuff. So far, it is really working well.
TNG: HOW DO YOU SEE YOURSELVES?
MS: Although we are a German agency, I believe we are not perceived like one. We are the most international agency in Germany.
TNG: I WAS AWARE OF THE WORK YOU DID FOR THE G-SERIES. BUT I DIDN’T KNOW THAT IT WAS YOU BEHIND THE “GROW UP” CAMPAIGN.
MS: Yes, we did that.
TNG: I WAS A BIT SURPRISED TO LEARN THAT. BECAUSE IT DOESN’T REALLY LOOK GERMAN. IT LOOKS LIKE HOLLYWOOD STUFF. I THOUGHT IT WAS REFRESHING. YOU ARE BASICALLY SELLING A CAR WITHOUT SELLING A CAR.
MS: Thank you. I am very grateful to hear that. Actually, it was the first real piece of work where I felt “OK, this is a new way for Mercedes.” And it changed the brand completely. All the work we did afterwards looks a little bit like that campaign. So much more fashion. Just relaxed. Not like that traditional masculine car “Which has the biggest engine?” style.
And the best feedback I got was that a lot of women told me “OK, finally — this is car communication I can relate to.” Because before that, car communication was basically made by — and for — old white men. And now we have a completely different setup. We wanted to create the international vibe. And we are proud of the turnout.
TNG: COULD YOU HAVE SOLD THAT WORK IF THE AGENCY WASN’T FOCUSED ON MERCEDES?
MS: No. I don’t think so. I think this is really crafted to what we wanted to achieve with this brand as an agency. And of course, we are in Berlin. Berlin is the most international city in Germany. It is easy to attract people from all around the world to come to Berlin, work for Mercedes-Benz and drink beer for two euros all night long. This is why we have a diverse and international crew. Our meetings are in English, and if I’m not in the room, sometimes even in Italian or Portuguese.
And actually, when we did “Grow up” I got calls from global luxury brands afterwards that wanted us to work for them. They said the same thing as you about “Grow up”: “I wasn’t expecting this from a German agency.” Which is a nice thing to say. Unfortunately, we couldn’t move forward with them because they are required to have a pitch. Due to their compliance. And we do not pitch. Due to our compliance.
I don’t see Mercedes as a car brand though, it is a luxury brand.
TNG: WHERE DO YOU THINK THE CAR INDUSTRY IS GOING WITH TESLA HAVING A STRONG BRAND IMAGE BECAUSE THEY DON’T HAVE THE SAME LEGACY AND BEING JUST LIKE A TECH COMPANY? SHOULD MERCEDES TRY TO BECOME MORE LIKE TESLA?
MS: I don’t see Mercedes as a car brand though, it is a luxury brand. Look at how luxury brands communicate today. It is not traditional luxury communication like ten years ago. Nowadays Kanye West collaborates with Supreme.
The whole world of luxury communication is upside-down. And I think luxury car brands can learn from that. This is why we brought A$AP Rocky. And when I went to Stuttgart — the Daimler Headquarters — I suggested to bring in A$AP Rocky. Telling the client that he was already modeling for Dior, that’s when they started to listen. And that’s how we got A$AP Rocky for the “Grow up” campaign. After that I brought up Nicki Minaj for the A-Class campaign.
TNG: I HAVE SEEN THIS ONE. “YOU DID, THAT”.
MS: I think this is how luxury communication looks and feels today. It is not that serious anymore. You don’t always have to show crazy rich people. This is what we try to bring to Mercedes. Of course, Mercedes itself is about to change. They will launch electric cars. But in a Mercedes-way, of course. You should expect an electric car as a Mercedes-Benz, not as a Tesla.
If you go to China, the biggest dream of a young person is to own a Mercedes-Benz.
TNG: REGARDING CAR OWNERSHIP, PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN CITIES ARE NOT SURE IF THEY WANT TO OWN A CAR ANYMORE. HOW DOES THAT AFFECT THE WORK THAT YOU DO?
MS: We are not Mercedes. But we have to find solutions. Daimler has invested in Car2Go actually, MyTaxi, Blacklane and other innovative solutions. As we are working on global campaigns, we shouldn’t forget that they are a lot of other countries where people don‘t live in cities like Paris or Berlin. Just go to Nîmes or Arles. There is no car sharing yet. And if you go to China, the biggest dream of a young person is to own a Mercedes-Benz.
TNG: YOU ARE RIGHT. TO MEET DONALD TRUMP, KIM JONG-UN CAME IN A MERCEDES-BENZ. I UNDERSTAND THAT IT IS STILL A STATUS SYMBOL TO RIDE IN A MERCEDES.
MS: Yes. I saw it. At first, I was not sure whether this is good PR or not.
I mean, the Pope was always driving Mercedes-Benz. A G-Class actually.
TNG: I HAVE NEVER SEEN THE G-CLASS IN PARIS BEFORE. BUT I’VE SEEN A BUNCH OF THEM IN HONK KONG.
MS: It is a millionaire’s car in some countries.
TNG: I GUESS. AND THEN THE RAPPER MAC MILLER BOUGHT ONE WHEN HE MADE IT. HE EVEN TALKED ABOUT IT IN HIS MUSIC “DROPPED 100 GRAND ON IT / I WANT TO BE BURIED IN MY MERCEDES.” IT’S FUNNY.
MS: Actually, when you call our agency, on our waiting line, you hear a mash-up that we did of all songs featuring Mercedes-Benz. And there’s a ton of it; not only in hip-hop, but also in rock-n-roll.
I think there is still a huge potential with Mercedes-Benz and pop culture to be explored. Mercedes-Benz should really do more on that.
TNG: THEY ARE ALREADY SPONSOR OF THE FASHION WEEK IN BERLIN.
MS: Correct.
TNG: GOING BACK TO THE WORK YOU DID WITH THE AMBER CUBE, WAS IT A PR-STUNT FOR YOU?
MS: The brief was to do a launch campaign for the new G-Class. This is the car with the biggest fan base ever. In our research we realized that the biggest fear of all G-Class owners is that Mercedes-Benz changes the car look. So we played with that. Because we knew already that they were not going to change the look at all. We tried to tell the DNA story of the first G-Class from 1979. It is well preserved and will live on in the new car. This is how we came up with the idea of the Amber Cube.
Originally, the plan was a film and some prints, classic stuff. When we brought the idea to Stuttgart, it was clear that all the money had to be put into the production of the cube and that there would be no money for media. But they said: “Go for it”. They asked us if we had done something like this before and if we had experience. We didn't. We had no idea how to do this.
We went into a lot of research to see if there is someone who can take a real G-Class and put it into an amber cube. We found someone in Hamburg/ Germany who accepted the challenge. We had to deliver the cube from its place of origin across the big pond to the Detroit Motor Show. After that it was shown at other events. The image of the cube traveled around the world via social media and all the mayor TV stations and newspapers reported about it.
And now the cube itself travels around the world. It was in Russia in May. The Russian market is one of the most important for the G-Class. After Russia, it will be in Berlin, then it will go to Tokyo. In the end it will end up where the G-Class is being manufactured since it’s been born, in Graz/Austria.
Now they are asking us for additional models to do something similar. Which is nice but also a very tough brief. Because this was one of our most successful campaign so far along with “Grow up “ and the A-Class campaign starring Nicki Minaj. The A-Class campaign isn’t too crazy about creativity, but people all over the world just like it.
TNG: IT PUTS A SMILE ON YOUR FACE.
MS: Yeah, what I like about the campaign is that we are not so serious about amazing technology. As you can imagine this is quite difficult for a nation of engineers. But it perfectly sums up the relation to our client and the love for the brand and how much it already has transformed brand communication.
Matthias Schmidt
Managing Creative Director
