Launched in 2012, Mbrace2 allows car owners to access a live concierge along with sites such as Google, Yelp, Facebook, etc., and to use smartphones and computers to send maps to their cars, check their vehicles' systems, lock their doors, and more. Thus, the company's 50-by-80-foot CES exhibit, designed and fabricated by Dimensional Communications Inc. of Mahwah, NJ, focused less on the cars and more on the technology inside them.

With only three vehicles on display, large-scale fabric structures comprised the exhibit's backbone. Three fabric columns and a roughly 50-foot-long fabric wall housed multitouch monitors that offered an interactive Mbrace2 experience. Meanwhile, four custom kiosks surrounding the SL-Class convertible enabled attendees to explore the technology via vehicle hardware embedded in the kiosks.

A 30-foot-diameter fabric header housed 35 columnar light fixtures, all illuminating a 7-ton cube with a mirrored façade below. Simulating the dashboard of the future, the cube offered an egg-shaped opening that gave way to a pristine white environment bathed in fuchsia light. Inside, attendees discovered a gesture-based interactive experience, where swiping a hand activated windshield wipers and raising an open palm increased the car's temperature. As attendees interacted with the technology, an ultra-high-def flat-panel display illustrated the resulting dashboard and windshield operations.

While gadget geeks flocked to the space, the exhibit's biggest win was the media impressions it generated. According to a report from public-relations firm Maloney & Fox, Mercedes-Benz's presence generated 342 million media impressions across multiple outlets. Now that's a figure any company would be happy to embrace. E