Mercedes-Benz

Global messaging rarely travels perfectly. A phrase that feels smooth and persuasive in one market can sound formal, awkward, or overly literal in another.

For Mercedes-Benz, the copy also had to protect the confidence and precision of an established luxury brand. Push the language too far towards formality, and it risks feeling translated. Take it too casual, and it loses some of the authority people expect.

The first brief was to adapt a set of email and SMS templates for UK customers. Each message needed to retain its original purpose while sounding as though it had been written for the market from the start.

I began by looking at what every message needed to communicate, how it fitted into the wider customer journey, and where the existing language felt unnatural for a UK audience.

I then rewrote the templates at the level of tone, rhythm, and customer expectation. That included tightening formal phrasing, clarifying the action customers needed to take, and threading the Mercedes-Benz voice through every subject line, email, and SMS.

The aim was to make the adaptation feel invisible. Customers should simply receive clear, polished communication that sounds natural in their market and unmistakably Mercedes-Benz.

The initial localisation project led to a much broader mix of work. I went on to support Mercedes-Benz with email sequences, standalone campaigns, copyediting, and transcreation across a range of customer communications.

Some briefs involved reshaping centrally produced copy for the UK. Others started with an objective and a blank page. In both cases, the work required a close understanding of the brand, the audience, and the precise job of each message.

Automotive CRM often needs to communicate practical information while maintaining a polished customer experience. Whether the message concerned servicing, warranty protection, or a wider campaign, every line had to be clear and consistent.

That meant paying close attention to the small decisions: how direct a CTA should be, where a sentence needed more warmth, and which details should take priority.

Working across both new copy and adapted material helped Mercedes-Benz maintain one coherent voice while giving UK communications the local judgement they needed.

What began as a one-off localisation job grew into repeat work across a wider range of formats and briefs.

Mercedes-Benz gained flexible UK copy support for adapting global messaging, developing new campaign copy, and maintaining a precise and consistent voice across customer communications.