Volkswagen. Das Auto.

Since its launch in India, Volkswagen has been in news for one campaign or the other. It has showered its creativity in one form of media- be it print, social, online or electronic or the other. This makes the brand an exciting case for marketing students to understand and analyze the branding concepts. Volkswagen India has never repeated the same concept of advertising, and more relied on word of mouth marketing after the campaign is launched. So they believe more in Pull strategy then Push.

Volkswagen India: A Brief Introduction

Volkswagen Group comprised of Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Scania, Seat, Skoda, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles (Volkswagen Nutzfahrzeuge) and Volkswagen Passenger Cars. Out of this Audi (2007), Skoda (2001) and Volkswagen (2007) are launched in Indian market.

Volkswagen (core brand) was launched in India in 2007, when Passat was introduced in Indian market. Since its launch Volkswagen has introduced 6 new products in different segments.

Volkswagen Campaigns

1. Talking Newspaper (Launch of Vento): Launch Period: 21st September, 2010 Back Page Campaign was promoted only once Amount Spent: Rs 5 crore Newspaper: Times of India and Hindu No. of copies: 2.2 million Region: Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Pune and Chennai

The Concept: Volkswagen launched its new Vento with a recorded audio clip attached at the back of the newspaper. The clip was auto played as soon as the paper was opened to read. Hence, driving the attention of the reader at the back of the newspaper, where the device was attached. All the features of the new Vento were mentioned at the end. In all 22 lakhs devices were attached to the newspaper which created huge buzz in both offline and online media.The core idea behind this advertisement was to establish an emotional connect with the customers and what better way than being able to directly speak with the customers with the aid of newspaper. Volkswagen spent Rs 5 crore with the aim to create a brand for this car in the eye of the customer rather than increase sales. As the company’s brand recall was quite low this campaign brought them in the mind of the consumer.

Credits:CEO DDB Mudra: Sandeep VijPresident DDB India: Rajiv SabnisCreative Team:Chief Creative Officer: Bobby PawarNational Creative Head: Rajeev RajaAnshumani KhannaTimsy GuptaTrishna ParkashGururaj RaoAccount Management:Vice President: Ashish MarwahGiridhar BhatPunit BhattPlanning Team:Vice President: Micheal Follett

2. Volkswagen Roadblock Campaign Launch Date: 11th November, 2009 Whole newspaper Campaign was promoted only once Amount Spent: Rs 40 crore (On the Integrated Marketing Campaign) Newspaper: Times of India Region: National Campaign

The Concept:

Roadblock means to take all advertisement columns in the newspaper for a particular day. Hence, during the edition of that particular day only advertisement of one particular company will come in newspaper. Obviously, the amount to block all advertisement spaces is huge but it creates a lot buzz and word of mouth marketing.

Volkswagen is the first company to use Roadblock campaign in India.

The campaign was followed with a 360 degree marketing campaign which followed till February, 2010.

Medium Quantity

TV Spots 18000

Print 150

OOH 300

The Objective:

Raodblock was a corporate branding exercise done by Volkswagen. It promoted the existing models (Passat, Jetta) and also the upcoming models (highly awaited – Polo, Polo, Toureg). The basic purpose was to increase awareness of the brand rather than purely sales driven.

3. Volkswagen Die Cut Campaign March, 2010 Whole newspaper Campaign was promoted only once Newspaper: Times of India Region: National Campaign

The Concept: There was a hole punched in the shaped of New Volkswagen Polo in the 8 th March, 2010 edition of Times of India. The campaign was promoted as “A Cut Above The Rest”. This drew attention of every reader as this whole was made throughout the newspaper. There was no way a reader could miss this.

The Objective:

Volkswagen, a relatively unknown brand in India with 13% awareness was launching a small car ‘Polo’. Polo competed with big boys like Hyundai, Tata, Maruti, all with awareness in excess of 80%. To deliver an aggressive sales target, Volkswagen needed quick saliency & high buzz around the brand. There are at least 6 aggressive car launches in India every year. Full-page & half page ads were the category norm. Every day, newspapers carried atleast 3-4 car ads. For Polo, the challenge was to stand apart, be noticed & grab mind-space quickly with the consumer.

4. Innovations for everyone August to November, 2010 TV advertisement: Duration 40 seconds A separate website was launched

The Concept: This campaign showcased that Volkswagen believes in innovation in every car it manufactures. It shows the innovative feature that each car possesses, hence giving a sense of belongingness of each car in the Volkswagen family.

This campaign was extended online through the website ‘www.innovationsforeveryone.com”. The company asked every people to submit their innovative ideas which will be judged by jury.

The Objective: “Innovations for everyone” was a corporate branding exercise by Volkswagen. This campaign was basically designed to give a message to the consumers that innovations at Volkswagen is not only for high end cars but it runs in the DNA of the company and this percolates in every car it manufactures. Innovation is one of the brand identities that Volkswagen has along with value and responsibility.

5. Think Blue Campaign Campaign for New Passat Presenting Blue as the New Green Campaign launched in 2011 An integrated marketing campaign: Print, Electronic, Online (Website and Blogs)

The concept: Blue motion technologies are the one which help sustain mobility and environment protection. In India, this is launched in Passat. Blue Motion Technologies represent a brand for clean fuel efficient vehicles.

The Objective: Blue Motion technology was launched in order to project Volkswagen as a responsible brand in the eyes of the consumer. These technologies will be used in all the present cars and launched in the coming years.

Agencies Involved:

1. Media Agency: Mediacoma. MD – Divya Gururaj

2. Ad Agency: DDB Mudraa. President – Rajiv Sabnis

3. Volkswagen: PR and Marketing Head – Lutz Kothe

World’s First handwritten newspaper

Media/Origin: Print / Indian Product Group: Automotive | Automotive Products Brand: Volkswagen Phaeton Advertiser: Volkswagen India Advert title(s): Phaeton HT innovation Creative Agency (Name, City, Country): India

Phaeton is Volkswagen‟s most luxurious model. In a world of mass produced vehicles, the Phaetonisexquisitely hand crafted. To bring this alive in an attention-grabbing and innovative way, we worked withthe Hindustan Times on an innovative approach to a media partnership. For one day only, each page ofthe paper was printed in a different font, to make it look as if it had been written out by hand rather thanprinted by a printing press. To the best of our knowledge, this has never been done anywhere in the worldbefore.

Youtube campaign

Above shown is the printscreen of a very famous and innovative youtube video launched by Volkswagen for Beetle. As this video runs, you will see a lot many bugs flying here and there on the webpage (of the youtube). Again this was an astonishing attempt made by the Volkswagen and it kept its mark of launching the most innovative campaigns for product promotioning.

Brand Strategy

Volkswagen followed the following brand strategy on TV commercials:-

1. When it was launched in the Indian Market, the brand Volkswagen was advertised so as to spread the awareness of the Volkswagen.

For eg. the launch of the ad on TV which shows a young boy in a Volkswagen showroom deciding on the cars that he wants to 'book in advance' at various stages of his life – one for his 18th birthday, one when he becomes the 'vice-president' of a company and another when he eventually becomes the chief executive officer.

The tagline at the end of the commercial says, 'German engineering. Made for India'.

This advertisement aimed at two things:

"It is about giving people different cars at different stages of their lives. There is a Volkswagen for every stage.

"Today's kids are bold enough to ask for what they want. From that human insight came this commercial."

They thought of creating stories with humor

2. Later on when the awareness was created they promoted each of their cars like Passat and Polo.

For eg. Ad featuring the all new Polo. The TV commercial showed a tennis match in progress with heads bobbing left & right. And then while the ball is being lobbed across the courts, the heads are transfixed to one side. The camera then shows what’s got the audience hooked: a banner saying, ‘Volkswagen Polo, now at £ 8240 (or some such number). Brilliant. And then there was another one:′ it showed a woman at her breakfast table calmly sipping her tea and browsing the newspaper. She keeps getting hiccups right through this process. And then she glances at the Volkswagen Polo ad with the surprisingly low price in the newspaper. She then continues to read the paper and sip her tea, only with the hiccups having disappeared.

Similarly, the other cars like Passat (which mainly advertised its attributes and features) and the Beetle were advertised.

Volkswagen followed the following brand awareness on Internet:-

They encouraged more and more working professionals on LinkedIn. LinkedIn approached Volkswagen India with an opportunity to be the first auto major to establish a presence on LinkedIn Company Pages. ‘Company Pages’ provide a branded home base within the LinkedIn community where businesses can showcase their company, products, and services in a trusted, professional environment. Volkswagen India participated in the worldwide launch of Company Pages in November 2010, and soon thereafter opened up their pages to allow LinkedIn members to post reviews and recommendations of their car line in India including the New Beetle, Vento, and Polo.

Next, Volkswagen launched a series of Recommendation Ads encouraging more customers to join the conversation. Each ad showcased endorsements of actual LinkedIn members, and invited the

community to recommend their favorite Volkswagen model. Volkswagen used LinkedIn’s broad reach (100 million members worldwide, 9 million in India) and precise targeting capabilities to connect with professionals who matched the buyer profiles for their different models. It was a huge success. The results were unexpectedly high. In less than 30 days, over 2,700 Volkswagen fans had stepped forward to recommend their favorite cars and share these recommendations with their professional networks. In the same time period, Volkswagen gained over 2,300 followers who asked to stay abreast of the latest news and developments from Volkswagen.

Volkswagen and Nat Geo extend partnership for 'Innovations for Everyone' initiative

Volkswagen and National Geographic had partnered to launch 'Innovations for Everyone', a first of its kind campaign in September 2010. The partnership was aimed at identifying the potential of relevant innovations that could lead to technological or scientific breakthroughs to help improve the quality of life. While announcing the winners of the inaugural year, the automobile brand announced the extension of their partnership. The initiative received a participation of more than 5000 individuals.Speaking on this occasion, Lutz Kothe, Head of Marketing & PR, Volkswagen Passenger Cars, Volkswagen Group Sales, said, “Innovation is one of our key brand pillars and with this campaign our attempt was to bring the brand closer to the people of India. We wanted them to think free, give their ideas and thoughts an identity and move towards a world of modernization and we are delighted with the response that we have received with this very first campaign. We look forward to continue this campaign in future”.

On the response for the campaign, Keertan Adyanthaya, Managing Director, Fox International Channel & National Geographic Network India added, “It is imperative that we should leverage the talent of the country and bring it to light. At Nat Geo, it’s been our constant endeavor to encourage people to live curious. With this initiative, the channel takes pride to provide all the budding innovators an opportunity to put their out-of-the-box ideas to test. We are extremely excited to put these ideas into practice and encourage Innovation in the country”.

Three winning innovations were monetarily awarded for their efforts by the brand, and the final winning innovation, which was decided by public voting, was also awarded a Volkswagen Vento.

Evolution of Logo:-

Volkswagen means ‘People’s car’ in German. The history of the company is tied with Adolf Hitler.Before the rise of Hitler, the German economy was in a very bad shape; as a result people couldn’t afford to buy cars. In 1933, Hitler raised the idea of an inexpensive car in the Auto show.In 1934, Ferdinand Porsche met with Hitler to design the car. Hitler gave him all the specifications of the car and Porsche promised to deliver the design. In 1937, the Gesellschaft zur Vorbereitung des Deutschen Volkswagens mbH was created (it became simply Volkswagenwerk GmbH a year later). In 1938, Hitler opened a state funded Volkswagen factory in Walburg. It was suppose to produce commercial cars, but it was used to churn out military cars. It was only later found that Hitler had intended to use the Porsche car as a military vehicle only, which could carry 3 men and a machine gun.After the WWII, Britishers took over the company. They renamed the car as Beetle. Surprisingly all the car makers like Fiat and Ford declined to take ‘free control’ of the Volkswagen factory. So, it was returned to the German government, and went on to become one of the world’s bestselling cars ever.The first logo was designed by Franz Xavier Reimspiess, a Porsche employee during an office logo design competition. The main part of the logo hasn’t changed much, but understandably after the WWII, they got rid of the design around the circle which seems to be inspired from the Nazi flag. I love the colors that were added in 2000, to the logo which was built after WWII, it depicts a positive change in the company and the ability to adapt to the new millennium.

Section 2

Print media campaigns

Campaign Type: Buzz marketing Campaign for Print Media

Details: The readers of The Times of India and The Hindu were in for a big surprise on September 21st, 2010 to open a newspaper that actually spoke to them. Volkswagen has always been an innovative and aggressive marketer. This is what it justified yet again prior to the launch of ‘Vento’ through the speaking ad campaign.

Feedback: Call it innovation, call it a path-breaker, intrusive or simply a waste, it has been called all that. But Volkswagen has definitely managed to occupy a place in the mind-space of the target customer group through the speaking ad campaign.

ANALYSIS:If we consider that a major segment of the reader base of the dailies like Times of India and Hindu are people who cannot afford the Volkswagen Vento, the cost incurred and the media used is questionable. What also seems debatable is that in the quest of attracting as many customers as it can Volkswagen probably failed to zero in on its target market. Had slightly more thought gone into the choice of media it would have been the perfect icing to what definitely has been a clutter-breaking, path defining campaign.

Result of Campaign: The speaking ad campaign did help raise awareness levels about Volkswagen in the Indian customer. The buzz that was desired was created. The campaign thus succeeded on all major yardsticks that could be used to desire the success of a campaign. Increase in footfalls that Volkswagen showrooms across the nation have witnessed.

Bone of contention: Cost issue. The logistics cost, procurement cost, etc. considering that the chips used in the device were procured from the Volkswagen manufacturing plant in China, would add up to a whopping amount. The exact amount though is undisclosed.

Build upto Speaking Ad Campaign:The speaking ad campaign of Volkswagen was preceded by the famous ‘Roadblock’ campaign which was itself much talked about.

Campaigns post Speaking Ad Campaign:The speaking ad campaign of Volkswagen was followed by an ATL campaign. The Volkswagen Vento was advertised on the television and the ‘passion in design’ that the brand wanted to communicate was evident enough through the television ad.

On social media marketing

LinkedIn

I was highly impressed upon seeing the way Volkswagen India has utilised LinkedIn company page. Since company pages is a new feature from the stable of LinkedIn, very few companies have actually have taken advantage of it & Volkswagen is one of those. They have listed 7 of their vehicles on LinkedIn so far & have got staggering 2772 recommendations till the time of writing this post!

This is a powerful area where it can get a lot of benefit due to such a large number of recommendations. You never know when some executive on LinkedIn sees a recommendation by a person who happens to be his LinkedIn connection & he makes the decision to buy that car! Or there can be bulk orders too.

Youtube

As far as Youtube efforts of Volkswagen India are concerned, i would rate it 50-50 because as far as the distribution of videos among influential bloggers and other news media channels is concerned they have done it well and these videos have admirable number of views but they lack as far as leveraging their dedicated Youtube channel is concerned.

They should take a cue from Youtube channel of Volkswagen International who have total views of more than 57 million till date!. They should cross promote the videos of their dedicated channel on other online platforms and should provide some incentives for people to subscribe to their channel.

Section 3

Brand Personality:

For 60 years Volkswagen has successfully kept faith with its humble “for the people” origins so that today, despite its move into the luxury car category, you can still call Volkswagen a car brand with democratic values. Although Volkswagen brands manufacture luxury cars however, the down-to-earth values and respectful behavior that the brand maintains tell a very personal story that invites a deeper relationship.

Brand community:

In the case of VW brand communities, “prosuming” is highly relevant. Many of the activities in these brand communities are in fact about “keeping the cars alive”, maintaining, repairing and restoring classic cars. Members of brand communities around classic cars aren’t just consumers or admirers of a brand, but prosumers who construct a meaningful context between consumption and production which is (1) collectively produced and (2) embedded in a larger frame of reference which Hallay, Hellman and Raabe (2008) call “brand culture”. For members of VW brand communities it seems to be appealing that maintaining classic cars is expedient in ecological as well as in economic terms.

Brand Positioning:

Volkswagen Group, which owns both the Volkswagen and Skoda brands, is quietly realigning its positioning in India to reflect its global strategy. In Europe, the Volkswagen brand is positioned above the Skoda brand, but in India it is exactly the opposite. Skoda entered India way back in 2001 with the Octavia model, and built up an enviable reputation for quality and luxury among Indian car buyers. In fact, its current range of models is a big hit with buyers thanks to their solid build quality, Luxurious interiors and frugal diesel engines.

Volkswagen is now in the process of repositioning Skoda as a more frugal brand while elevating itself to a more premium position. As a part of this strategy, Skoda was initially deprived of newer generation common rail diesel engines for its Superb model. It continued to use the older ‘Pumpe Duse’ injection technology, while the Volkswagen Passat model got the new common rail diesel engine first.

Brand Typography:Working with the Volkswagen Logos

References

Volkswagen india website