• CNET, Thursday, July 21, 2011 9 AM

The 2012 Mercedes-Benz M class will be featured when the company talks safety. Steve Cannon, VP marketing, says the campaign "is going to be real red meat," since it will be based on product features and customer benefits. The vehicle, which hits showrooms in September, has a drowsiness detection system called Attention Assist and options like a blind-spot monitoring and lane-departure assist that had been available only on more expensive Mercedes-Benz passenger cars.

Mercedes has been featuring a Google executive whose S-class sedan, with Distronic Plus with Pre-Safe braking, helped him avoid an accident. The system automatically detected a possible collision and applied the brakes. While the video isn't about M class, Cannon said the M class will get the feature as an option. More recently, the company started running a TV spot based on the video, which Cannon said has scored extremely well in ad research.

Cannon said the M class and the face-lifted C class would share a heavy advertising schedule from September through November, followed by time out for the annual year-end event sales promotion in November and December, then back to heavy M class advertising in the first quarter of 2012.

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