My Life With A Mercedes Benz

 

our Mercedes Benz Sprinter



I have never been a person who thought of themselves as the type to want a fancy car.

When I was little I never looked at fancy cars and thought I wanted one. All I ever wanted a new skateboard and a beer (yes, I was that kid). When we were looking at vans to buy and how to deck them out we always googled “Dodge Sprinter”. We went to the “Dodge” site to see them and whenever we heard of a used one to look at it was always a Dodge.

Well, 2010 was the first year Mercedes sold Sprinters in the US. And if you have never seen the two vans next to each other you don’t know the true meaning and value of what “Branding” can do for you. I mean the two vans look the same, run on the same engine, use the same diesel and can be converted into an RV the same way, but you slap a "peace sign" Mercedes Benz logo on the front and you will get people running across the parking lot to say “nice rig” and ask you how much you spent.





A Dodge Sprinter

First of all, we went with a van because we felt it was going to be easier to park in outta the way places and we got it in a dark color to hide well at night. Well, well, well, that bright sliver logo squashed that notion.

You wouldn’t believe how many times I hear “oooo you must be doing good for yourself”.

Do people really believe FedEx and SunChips started doing better now that they drive Mercedes Sprinters around? Are plumbers all of a sudden doing better? Nope, same van and miraculously, same price.

I mean, I love our van but its nothing special, its just a big Dodge van with a Mercedes logo on it. But like I said, it is a great education in branding.

I now understand how branding makes someone think what they are seeing is valuable.

I was at a show and a guy came up to check out our van and was going on and on about it and I said something about "if it was a Dodge he wouldn’t have come over" and he said if it was a Dodge it wouldn’t have made it all the way there, what? Really? That is powerful right there.

As artists we also need that branding power, so when someone walks into somebody’s home and sees a piece of original art, you want them to make comments like that too. So how do we get there?