Ludacris had some famous company in his Mercedes Benz commercial. The car company pulled out all the stops for its 2019 Super Bowl ad, with Free Willy and Wile E. Coyote getting in on the fun.
The Mercedes-Benz 2019 A-Class had one of Sunday’s most beloved Super Bowl commercials. It followed a man with the uncanny ability to make anything happen simply by saying it. The premise began small, giving him dominion over sports and traffic lights, but before long he could change anything.
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The ad found the protagonist sitting in the audience of an opera with a date. He looked up at the stage with a bored expression, then said, “Change the music.” Just like that, the lead wiped a hand over his face and transformed into Ludacris.
The 41-year-old rapper pulled off his wig, and the stage changed into a hip hop dance routine. Ludacris jumped right into his 2003 hit “Stand Up,” rapping, “When I move, you move.”
The commercial continued to escalate, with the man calling on Lassie for help in a stalled elevator, then changing the course of an episode of Loony Tunes. He even uttered the command “Free Willy,” causing a killer whale to jump over his head and out to sea.
Finally, with the ad nearly finished, the camera landed on the Mercedes-Benz 2019 A-Class, and the premise made sense. Inside, the man was able to call out the same voice commands to his car, which responded by customizing the interior lighting, turning on the air conditioning and playing his music. Once again, the selection was “Stand Up.”
The commercial, entitled “Say The Word,” was released Wednesday online. It made a bit of an impression ahead of the actual game, although it reached its real audience on Super Bowl Sunday. The star-studded clip had a lot of competition to live up to, yet it still managed to be one of the highest-production value Super Bowl commercials of the day.
To the company, it was worth shelling out for, as the new A-Class is a big leap for Mercedes. This is the manufacturer’s first car to get the new MBUX “info-tainment” system built in, making it available in the cheaper model before it even gets to cars like the S-Class.
“MBUX is a game-changer and we think that once aware of the A-Class price point and technology, a lot of people who hadn’t considered Mercedes or thought owning one was still several years away will want to take a look,” Mercedes’ vice president of marketing, Drew Slaven explained to CNET last week. “And, given that we have some of the highest owner loyalty in the industry, once these new buyers join the brand, they’re likely to stay for quite some time.”
