Mercedes-Benz is moving away from discount-led sales: Santosh Iyer, CEO, Mercedez-Benz India

In a conversation with Storyboard18’s Delshad Irani, Santosh Iyer, Managing Director and CEO, Mercedes-Benz India, said that the marquee German automaker is moving away from discount-led sales and towards experience-led marketing.

"In the past, festive campaigns used to be a lot about discounts. Now, even if Diwali is on November 11th, customers are already booking the cars in advance as they know it takes around two months to get a car from the time of booking," Iyer explained.

Iyer said that the company wanted to make the festive season more memorable for its customers, hence it is coming up with an experience with MS Dhoni, where 50-100 customers who buy a car during the festive period will get a chance to experience an exclusive evening in the Himalayas with the cricketer, and converse with him on cars, cricket, et al.

Iyer believes that more Indians will shift towards luxury cars because of low EMIs. Also, the company is planning to reduce the minimum down payment to Rs 10 lakh. “Customers can just pay Rs 60,000 a month and can get into the luxury segment,” he says.

Sharing his learnings from the competition, Iyer says, “Competitors focussed on the lower end of the market are doing a great job of getting more customers into the luxury segment by offering cars at more affordable prices. That’s a good thing as these customers will upgrade from premium to luxury cars over a period of time.”

By way of sustainability, Iyer adds that electrification alone does not cut it. “When you look at sustainability, it’s a much bigger topic and factors like what one does with suppliers is important. By the end of this year, a third of our retail network would be on alternative energy. We will also transform our dealer network, which will use sustainable power. Our idea is to go net zero by 2039,” Iyer said.