Lucky Star
Giving a Mercedes sports car the Hollywood treatment.
Probably hard to have Mercedes admit they were inspired by BMW but do great minds think alike?
The iconic Hire project from BMW must have been an influence on the Mercedes Lucky Star. BMW made a series of short (c 10m ) films where the protagonist was the driver of a top of the range BMW, and the plot revolved around the fixes he found himself in.
With a range of A-list directors and actors the Hire films were very watchable and the campaign was hugely successful — and covered in a previous Your Superpower.
A couple of years later Mercedes working with London ad agency Campbell Doyle Dye, rethought the concept and produced a lavish film trailer - for a fictitious film Lucky Star.
The trailer was directed by Michael Mann ( of Heat and Insider fame ) and starred actor Benicio del Toro. But the real star is the car - the Mercedes 500 SL which appeared through the short film.
Little expense was spared - that is not the way Mann does things. The production budget was rumoured to be £5m and it,s all on the screen. Mann used many of the team who worked on Heat.
Product Placement is common in film and TV but few come close to this example.
The trailer ran in cinemas but amongst the trailers rather than the ads - and was also shown on TV - I imagine a very selective media buy.
It even got reviewed in the Film section of the Guardian, who noted its subtlety;
In an intriguing twist Mann wasn’t credited as the director, but he did acquire the rights to make an actual movie of Lucky Star. 20 years on that hasn’t happened - yet. Mann has shown his love of cars with his latest film Ferrari and is in talks to make a sequel to his biggest film Heat. Maybe Lucky Star is next?
Watch the 2 minute trailer here.