Every year, automakers use car shows to show off their latest machines and the classics that have made their brands famous. It's not only an opportunity to push sheet metal, it's also a chance to celebrate the culture of the automobile and to welcome the gearheads, the design fans, and curious fans from all over.

In 2020, car shows were cancelled globally: just one more disappointment in a heavy year. Mercedes-Benz wanted to bring back a little bit of joy to the fans by using Zoom, a platform that was suddenly ubiquitous in the early days of lockdown. The goal was to give fans stuck at home a small taste of celebration by having some famous faces and automotive influencers show off their favorite Mercedes-Benz vehicles. It also gave those fans a unique opportunity to engage with celebrity ambassadors through a more casual and intimate platform.

We created the first-ever live car show on Zoom, tapping a celebrity cast including Jay Leno, Martha Stewart, Ludacris, TV actor Madelaine Petsch, professional golfer Rickie Fowler, filmmaker Cole Walliser, and luxury journalist Hannah Elliott. We called it the Mercedes-Benz Concours de Zoom, in honor of the cancelled Concours d'Elegance. Fans were able to tune in live, just as if they were dialing into an ordinary Zoom call. And our celebs interacted in real time, using the platform to invite us into their homes and engage in entertaining conversation.

For our automotive enthusiasts, Covid dashed their dreams of in-person car shows. We also knew by April 2020, 300M+ participants were using Zoom daily, so we took advantage of the platform and catered to Mercedes-Benz fans across the world who were stuck at home. We brought the auto show to them! Enlisting the help of Mercedes-Benz owners, such as Jay Leno, Martha Stewart and Ludacris, we appealed to a wider audience and hosted the first-ever Mercedes-Benz virtual automotive showcase. While people across the world were in dire need of human interaction, the livestream allowed for real-time conversations between celebrity panelists and an exclusive look inside their luxury vehicles. In order for the content to live on beyond the live Zoom event, we produced edits for our social channels, as well as a full rebroadcast for YouTube that highlighted the best of the event, including our favorite off-script moments.

As we all know by now, plenty can go wrong on a big Zoom call. We mastered the technology and moderated the platform to keep everything running smoothly and without unwelcome interruptions. We also interacted with our celebrity participants beforehand to make sure everything would work on their end. And then we went live. The event took place over the course of an hour, with exactly the kind of fidelity and spontaneity you'd expect from a Zoom call — that is to say, it felt real. We then edited the show down to a shorter video that we launched on Instagram and YouTube, reaching a global audience.

The response on social channels was immediate, with a single post about the event generating 253,000 impressions and almost 11,000 engagements. Overall, the Concours produced more than 3 million impressions and 84,000 engagements. The press got in on the action too, with excitement noted in the Robb Report, Car & Driver, Autoweek and more.