Bettina Fetzer
OMD Worldwide
United Kingdom
The automotive changemaker, when faced with the COVID crisis the young veteran looked at this not as a moment to “wait and see” but rather as an accelerator of change. Bettina Fetzer, seized the opportunity to look inwards and understand how to emerge out of the crisis financially stronger, and poised to redefine and lead the automotive category. In just 18-months she added focus to the brand strategy harkening back to Mercedes-Benz roots, leaning fully into luxury. This vision redefined how the company needed to operate and act across all aspects of marketing. She reorganised the company and its +500 marketing employees to bring marketing and comms together under one roof. She developed a portfolio strategy to strategically align all Mercedes-Benz sub-brands (AMG, G Class and EQ) to deliver the new brand positioning “Desire for Modern Luxury”. Today, Mercedes-Benz enters 2022 as a company organized solely around delivering the world’s best luxury auto customer experiences, vs. product and discipline silos.Bettina recognized to lead and evolve with speed; change couldn’t just come from within. She challenged her agency partners to define the operating model of the future. She led one of the largest integrated pitches of 2021, spanning 45 markets and bringing together all partners under one roof, Omnicom’s TeamX, a tailormade agency fully integrated agency model for Mercedes-Benz.