The craziest filling station in the world: The "AutoAuto ShowShow": Joko Winterscheidt and Mercedes-Benz present new YouTube format

Mercedes-Benz breaks new ground in brand communications: the online programme“AutoAuto ShowShow”, produced exclusively by Mercedes-Benz, will be running from late summer with Joko Winterscheidt as the main protagonist. This branded entertainment concept consciously distances itself from a conventional display of vehicles, focusing instead on mobility-related issues such as car sharing and electric driving. These become an integral part of a creative and humorous storyline, aimed at presenting information in an entertaining way. The “AutoAuto ShowShow” will appear exclusively on social media and can be shared quickly and easily with the digital community. The spotlight of the show is on the everyday doings of filling station manager Joko (Joachim Winterscheidt), as he muses over life and witnesses the unusual things that happen around him. The story of everyday life at the filling station is enlivened with video inserts that address issues around automotive technology and mobility in an entertaining manner. The five episodeswill go online with English subtitles in August 2018 across the global social media channels of Mercedes-Benz.

“We constantly seek and find new ways of attracting the interest of customers and prospective customers of Mercedes-Benz. With the ’AutoAuto ShowShow’ we have opted for a somewhat unconventional, fresh and, above all, humorous format. Our aim with Joko’s style and humour is to entertain our viewers and, almost as an aside, to provide information and interesting details about our products and mobility offerings”, said Jens Thiemer, Vice President Marketing Mercedes-Benz Cars.

“We experience on a daily basis that corporate communications continues to evolve in parallel with the process of digital transformation. This new format activates a 360-degree communication with a global reach, which appeals to all target groups: media representatives, influencers and our own employees as multiplying factors. A highly motivated team made up of colleagues from Marketing and PR is working on the launch with Joko and I’m already looking forward to the premiere on social media”, said Jörg Howe, Head of Communications at Daimler AG.

With a twinkle in the eye: Mercedes-Benz does satire

In an age of social media, unusual formats offer an additional opportunity to convey the fascination of the Mercedes-Benz brand. The idea for the project was developed jointly between Joko Winterscheidt and the PR and Marketing teams from Mercedes-Benz. The creative design and implementation were handled by the agency Creative Cosmos 15, which is part-owned by Joko Winterscheidt. The main story was filmed at a specially modified filling station in Urbanstrasse in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg. Further locations for the various stories that appear in the show in the form of video shorts include Berlin, Barcelona and New York as well as the the Daimler AG research and development site at Nabern (Baden-Württemberg).

“In all honesty, if someone had told me before now that Mercedes-Benz was this open to new ways of doing things, I would have approached them much sooner. The collaboration has been - and still is - amazingly good and cool and I’m really excited to see how our ’AutoAuto ShowShow’ is received. Certainly, nothing like this has ever been done before.” says Joko Winterscheidt.

Alongside the many innovations, mobility solutions and vehicles from Mercedes-Benz, the show features a myriad familiar faces in both leading and supporting roles, among them German brand ambassadors such as Stefanie Giesinger, Die Lochis, DJ Felix Jaehn, Ralf Möller, Pascal Wehrlein and Mick Schumacher.

Each of the five “AutoAuto ShowShow” episodes is made up of a combination of show elements that play out at the filling station, along with appearances by guests and film clips relating to the various stories that were developed during filming. The interaction with the various people and customers who drop in to the filling station leads on to further stories that take place away from the filling station.

In brief – the plot lines of the various film clips

Lost Glove
Time and time again, people leave items behind them in shared cars. One day Joko finds a single glove in a car2go and sets off on a journey of adventure to some of the most well-known car2go cities in search of the glove’s owner.

Fashion Police/New York
Fashion city New York. Wherever you go here, you’ll find hipsters, fashion bloggers and influencers with a finger on the pulse of the trends of the future. Joko and a famous name from the world of fashion take on the part of the New York Fashion Police.

Mariella Mercedes
Mariella Mercedes is the sensational new soap opera running on YouTube, with a name that is reminiscent of a car brand. The MBUX system in the new A-Class hides a major secret, which Joko uncovers.

Test Drive
A different sort of driving school: Joko wagers that he would make a good driving instructor and challenges people to a duel in the Test Drive School. “Driving instructor” Joko responds to wrongly answered test questions with a buzzer that gives off minor electric shocks.

Charge your life
It takes about 30 minutes to charge a vehicle with enough electricity to cover a distance of around 150 kilometres. How to make best use of this waiting time? Joko comes up with a few ideas - inspired by the “e” for electric mobility – such as electric guitar or a visit to an escape room.

Great Pick Ups
We are all familiar with pathetic attempts at flirting. Joko turns the tables and deploys a young, attractive woman as a decoy in a Mercedes X-Class pick-up to chat up suntanned hunks on the beachfront - with some of the worst pick-up lines ever seen in online dating. Kids versus Cars A game show aims to investigate whether children today know how to behave. Three sets of parents, each with a child of about six, get active during a car journey. That this particular constellation, in combination with eating food, inevitably involves the interior getting dirty, is all part of the challenge.

Innovation Lab/Nabern
At the Daimler development and research centre, Joko meets a couple of clever engineers with a thirst for knowledge and the Mercedes-Benz S-Class. Convinced of his own vision, he persuades the two researchers to attempt something: to develop a revolutionary over-the-air software solution that uses innovative pothole detection software to provide warnings about potholes via Twitter.

About Joko Winterscheidt
“Joko” (Joachim) Winterscheidt is a German actor and presenter. He acquired recognition Germany-wide as a presenter for the music channel MTV. Together with his colleague there, Klaas Heufer-Umlauf, he introduced the legendary TV show “Circus HalliGalli”, which ended in June 2017. Since early 2018 Winterscheidt has been a member of the jury of the show “Das Ding des Jahres” (“Invention of the year”) on the German TV channel ProSieben and, in late March, also launched his own magazine, the personality magazine “JWD” (for the German for ’printed stuff from Joko Winterscheidt’ - but also a play on words for an expression meaning “far out”).  In addition, Joko Winterscheidt demonstrates social commitment through his “iChance” literacy and learning project for children and adolescents. 

Mercedes-Benz YouTube can be found at: http://mb4.me/youtube-global