Brendan Hickey
In a nutshell: For Mercedes-AMG we crafted the powerful and moving story of Bart Hickey, a blind mechanic. With more than 7 million views, ‘My Father’s Dream’ became the most viewed film that Mercedes-AMG have ever published on their YouTube channels.
© New Step Media, Mercedes-Benz AG, Looping Group
The Intro: Mercedes-Benz is one of the world’s most iconic luxury car brands and its AMG subsidiary is synonymous with powerful, high-performance vehicles.
© New Step Media, Mercedes-Benz AG, Looping Group
The Plot: Although established customers and ‘petrolhead’ fans of Mercedes-Benz respond to the raw power of its vehicles, especially those with the AMG marque, the company wanted to add a deeper, more emotional resonance to the brand through storytelling.
The Twist: Brendan Hickey wrote to Mercedes-Benz asking if they could make his father’s lifelong dream ‘to drive a Mercedes’ come true. We set about crafting the powerful and moving story of how Bart, who is blind, could get behind the wheel of an AMG GT R. We added the science of data to every step of the creation of the story, ensuring that edits of the film were optimised for each relevant channel.
Bart Hickey
© Jeremy Hill, Mercedes-Benz AG, Looping Group
The Result: My Father’s Dream was the most viewed and liked film that Mercedes-Benz/AMG have ever published on their YouTube channels. It attracted more than seven million views and 300,000 likes. The film has generated more comments than any other film in Mercedes’ YouTube history, 99% of them were positive. It generated significant earned media coverage, including a prime-time TV slot as the number one ‘best moment’ on RTL’s The Ultimate Chart Show. The media value of this spot alone was worth €1m.
© New Step Media, Mercedes-Benz AG, Looping Group
