Mercedes’ bolder styling targeting young

Mercedes is targeting younger drivers with an expanding product range and bolder designs, pinching customers off rivals. They are driving up sales, and driving down the customer age-profile.

Spear-headed by the coupe-style compact, half of the CLA’s European sales have been conquests. In the United States, 80% of CLA customers are from rival car-makers. The average age of a CLA buyer is 43, compared to 50 or older for the rest of Mercedes’ line-up.

Mercedes design boss, Gorden Wagener, is spearheading the reform, not only changing the age profile, but redefining Mercedes’ styling with cars such as the CLA, GLA, C class, S class and S-class coupe. Wagener said about Mercedes’ Sensual Purity design ethos: “For every new car, you see another piece of the puzzle coming together. These are the fruits from what we established, after I took over. I created a whole new design philosophy, which affects the entire brand.