Dive Brief:

• For a “secret Santa” campaign, Mercedes-Benz is direct messaging its Facebook and Instagram followers with 1,000 gifts.
• The car maker told Adweek it gets around 100 direct messages each day from its followers.
• The campaign was created with Razorfish and is identified with the hashtag #MBSecretSanta.

Dive Insight:

Mark Aikman, general manager of marketing services at Mercedes-Benz USA, told Adweek, "We had this clever idea of helping our customers find the perfect Santa gift.” He added, "We hope people will continue to follow the brand [on social] for some pretty amazing things. This definitely not a hard sell."

In the campaign Mercedes is sending followers direct messages that ask for the name, mailing address and social media handles for whoever the message recipient wants to send a gift to, and according to Mercedes it’s not collecting data or lead generation information as part of the effort.

Direct messaging is an unusual channel for marketing, but given the emphasis on personalization and authenticity in marketing it might be an underutilized channel. Aikman said, "Lots of time people will message us and say, 'Hey, look at this great Instagram I just took of my Mercedes. Can you post it? When we post those and give credit to the fans, oftentimes it's a surprise and delight that people really love, and it doesn't cost us anything."