It's A Skoda. Honest.
The Profitable Return on Brave Communication
SKODA. YES, SKODA
This paper relates the turnaround of a brand so maligned that until recently the very notion of an IPA submission on its behalf would have had a marketing audience bracing themselves for the inevitable punchline.
ABSTRACT
Despite the car industry's stranglehold on the nation's airwaves (863m was spent on automotive advertising in 2001, second only to retail expenditure), there are remarkably few established effectiveness cases. The category's purchase cycle is typically made scapegoat: the fact that cars are bought infrequently and after much consideration means that car advertising expenditure is unlikely ever to pay back over the short-term. (1) In Skoda's case, however, we believe that we can already demonstrate a short-term return on advertising investment. (A return on investment achieved despite the brand's history and a category share of voice of less than 2%.)
For all the smart integration of marketing efforts on the brand's behalf (DM, PR and design efforts were swiftly aligned behind a new strategic approach) our story is in some ways an old-fashioned case of 'only advertising can do this', as the brand's very public problem demanded broadcast as opposed to private communication.
The pub version of the Skoda brand turnaround is this: ridiculed brand and ailing business stumbles on decent car and radical advertising and the VW Group's ugly duckling is reborn as a swan.
The truth, inevitably, is more complex than this. This paper scrutinises four key periods:
1. A brief history of Skoda's UK performance until 1997, a period of creeping growth within the limits of the budget sector and against a small base of loyalists.
2. The (failed) ...