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Mercedes-AMG CEO Michael Schiebe has big ambitions for the AMG brand. "I want to make AMG the most successful performance brand in the market and nothing less, and that includes super luxury," he told Newsweek during an interview in Southern France, expressing ambition to take on not just BMW and Audi, but also Lamborghini and Ferrari.
Schiebe has a multi-prong approach to driving AMG to more success. It starts with the position of the brand and "elevating the Mercedes brand itself," he said. Rather than just performance, Schiebe sees AMG as being able to pair a superior version of luxury with performance.
"When it comes to performance, you need to be an authentic and credible performance brand. This means we need to hit some records on the Nordschleife for example, you cannot only say you are performance brand, and then only come in second place," he said.
Schiebe said that he intends to engage customers from various segment groups, including those the automaker has just started putting its toe into. "I want to cater to the customers with the S-Class and the GLS and so on, and we have just proven with AMG One that we can also carer to the hypercar customers. We have 275 very happy customers. Not all of them have the car yet, but we are in the production and deliveries of these cars.
"I recently met a customer of AMG One. He's from Augsburg ... and he drives it on an everyday basis … I just recently spoke with him and he said, 'I just love the car. I go to the bakery [in it] on Sunday.' We really love to see our customers really driving those cars," he said.
Schiebe's efforts include making AMG a, "financial success in the market." AMG is already a success in that regard. Mercedes-AMG achieved a 4 percent unit sales increase in 2023 according to the automaker's annual report.
Schiebe also counts wanting to be, "very, very successful when it comes to our customers," and wanting to have, "the most convincing products in the market." He is a self-described "product-driven guy" who thinks that, "If you have the right product, this is the best thing you can do for your customer."
This plays into how the Mercedes dealer base will sell AMG vehicles. "The best thing is if the salesman does not have to really explain too much. He just puts the customer in the car, and he comes back from a test drive and says, "Okay, I just want to have the car because it's so convincing. And, this is my job with my team, just to create the most exciting products that we have."
It Will Take More Than Cars to Best Ferrari, Lamborghini
What makes Lamborghinis and Ferraris so special aren't just their price tags and performance. Buyers and brand admirers appreciate the history, lore and scarcity of the models. It will take more than just cool, expensive performance cars to make AMG a true super luxury performance brand rival.
Cars that virtually sell themselves lend themselves to a near-all-digital sales model. Scheibe doens't see it this way, however, contrasting car buying with shopping for a new shirt. "This is maybe a little bit different to buying a t shirt online or something like that. Of course, you can order it, you try it on at home, and then if it doesn't fit, or you don't like it, you just send it back. It's much easier to do that," he said.
"If you commit yourself to buy a product, maybe for a higher monthly lease installment or cash purchase, I think it's a different level," he continued saying that he believes that current and future AMG customers want to, "sit in a car, smell it, just get the feeling of how the car drives."
The key is to make sure that the in-person and digital sales efforts "work perfectly together," Schiebe said. "Customers need to have the possibility to get all the information tat they want, in the most convenient way [via] social media, internet, what that is perfectly made to measure to what they need."
The prongs are all coming together, with future product that is aimed at moving the AMG bar higher than today. "Compare it to maybe running a marathon," Scheibe said, "If you want your personal best, it's okay. But, there's someone who wants [to be] faster than you Doing your personal best really isn't worth it. So, this is what we try … to be better than our competitors, and to also give our customers this positive feeling that they have bought the best car in that specific segment that they can get. This is really what motivates my team and me."
About the writer
Eileen Falkenberg-Hull leads the Autos team at Newsweek. She has written extensively about the auto industry for U.S. News & ... Read more