Mercedes-Benz 4MATIC Winter Commercial Will Appeal to the Teen Inside You

Everybody knows the advantages of having power sent to all four wheels as opposed to only a pair of them, so talking about better grip can become a little redundant. We're sick of seeing a car driving aggressively in the dirt, crawling through a difficult off-road section or drifting in the snow, followed by the voiceover telling us only that manufacturer's four-wheel-drive system can let you do that.

So what can a creative from an ad agency do when the client comes asking for a spot showcasing the car's ability to defy snow? Go for the emotional approach, of course. You can never go wrong with that, especially during the festive winter season, when we all tend to be a little extra melancholic.

Mercedes-Benz makes itself guilty of such an attempt with this latest spot for its 4MATIC system. Called "Snow Date," the story revolves around a teen boy and fierce blizzard. Oh, and a Mercedes-Benz car, of course.

The boy comes down into the living room and declares that "he's ready." The father sips from his hot chocolate, puffs through his nose and asks the boy if he bothered to look outside. The mother intervenes and tells the father to "take him." They're all very mysterious in their dialogue, but since we know the commercial's name is "Snow Date," the destination is quite obvious.

What's surprising is that the mother needed to push her husband," when in fact you'd expect the father to be more sympathetic toward the teen. No matter how old you are, you have to remember what it was like when hormones ran rampant through your body.

The 4MATIC-equipped C-Class is taken out of the garage, and the pair is off to the movies, cutting through the blizzard and the untouched snow with ease. The boy is confident "she'll be there," despite his father's negativity, and you can already see where this is going.

Indeed, the girl makes it as well, but not before she gives him a fright by being, as she should, a little late. She climbs out of a GLE, says "hey" and everything is right again. Considering the mother's insistence and the boy's confidence he wasn't going to be stood up, we realize that the only one who didn't know the girl's family also had a Mercedes-Benz was the boy's father.