[GTO]

Big thanks to my brother Nimesh for sharing! I love the ideas that the marketing guys @ VW-Skoda come up with. Do you remember the VW-Times of India edition? Be sure to check that thread out if you haven't already (or take another look even if you have - was brilliant). Another time, they had a vibrating ad in the newspaper!

Now, today's Hindustan Times gets delivered in a big Skoda envelope. Am sure many people first thought Skoda has left a gift outside their door early in the morning . Top class stuff!

[drmohitg]

Interesting idea and definitely eye-catching. It is a tad environmentally unfriendly I believe with all that paper waste.

The best advert for me is still the VW Vento advert where they had put that speaking device in the TOI edition.

[ninjatalli]

Great out-of-the-box thinking.

Now wouldn't it have been interesting if they had the info and ability to select the car on the ad depending on the address location. Upmarket areas - premium cars and so on. Similar to how the average consumer is targeted with ads online.

[Gypsian]

This is an alluring idea. Thanks to the marketing department and ad agency which has structured and emerged with such an idea. When competition is cut throat and at its peak, such ideas stand out in making the difference and surely brings a smile on the face of target audience.

[Red Liner]

Originally Posted by ninjatalli

Great out-of-the-box thinking.

Now wouldn't it have been interesting if they had the info and ability to select the car on the ad depending on the address location. Upmarket areas - premium cars and so on. Similar to how the average consumer is targeted with ads online.

If they customer profiled me to this extent, I will stop buying the Hindustan Times right away.

And Skoda.

[VNair]

This is innovative and out of the box. I also find the marketing team of TATA Motors innovative too, I remember them using Augmented Reality, where you could simply walk around the car at a place of your choice by scanning a QR code printed in their ads. I remember doing it for the Nexon few years back and recently for Safari.

[supermax]

Originally Posted by ninjatalli

Great out-of-the-box thinking.

Now wouldn't it have been interesting if they had the info and ability to select the car on the ad depending on the address location. Upmarket areas - premium cars and so on. Similar to how the average consumer is targeted with ads online.

No way. If they have to customize, they have to go the whole nine yards, doing a deep dive into the person's credit history, purchase history, current vehicle ownership information etc or keep it totally generic. The first approach may not even be legal, and doing a rough estimation by locality would perhaps alienate and drive more people away from them, than those they get towards them, so generic it would have to be.

-S

[TechnoBloop]

I guess many dreams would have been shattered today if the readers thought the envelope had a key to a brand new Slavia/Kushaq.
The Slavia envelope didn't even have the print 'Hindustan Times', people must have been hecka lot confused!!
Something weird but innovative.
PS- They should have invested this money in making the interior quality of 2.0 cars better instead of marketing! xD

[Chimera]

If only they could work a little on the customer service and reliability aspect ,they would be selling a lot more cars.
The VW audio device which was light activated in the paper was very unique though.

[Rapidholic]

My friend and I were very certain about the choice of vehicle which was tata Nexon so just went to discuss the finance options and possible discounts if we bought 2 cars together (this was June'20 when it was still the buyer's market). After a 45 min long and exhaustive discussion with Tata SA and not so great experience we came out and decided to book over the subsequent weekend.

Out of curiosity we went to check out other options:

1. Hyundai - spent less than 5 min at Hyundai due to dealer's arrogance and 12 month plus waiting of creta, didn't even care to show us the brochure and explain the features

2. Skoda - I was always fascinated with the name and never thought I could afford one. But as fate would have it, we were greeted in a manner that we felt so shy and politely refused chai/coffee and settled for 200ml bisleri bottles. Next thing I found myself looking at this thing of beauty and as soon I laid my eyes on it, SA asked me to sit inside and experience the driver seat.
I happily jumped in and SA sat on passenger side (my friend curiously listened to the features from backseat while I just sat there mesmerised holding the steering)
Next thing we saw was the cavernous 460 litre boot which made me happy and worried at the same time because mentally it gave me a 6 figure quotation, way beyond 8.75 lac of Nexon XM ). Also it really helped to see the exact model and color in flesh else you don't get to see base models in display with other brands.

Here comes the surprising part when SA told me it's going to cost ~ 8.5 and we can talk further if you like. I was just blown away and took a short test drive which further sealed the deal but we still didn't book the car. However before leaving they clicked this picture and sent to me (in a way it left an impression).

Next day I again reached out to a diff showroom who came within 2 hours to my place and offered a longish drive where I got to experience that 1.0 tsi in its full glory. Boy I was sold! I pulled out the check book and started filling details and then halfway through realised that I didn't talk about the final price and stopped myself somehow. Discussion went on in the TD car itself for 10 minutes where we sealed the deal for 8.35
Later I wrote to Zac to knock off that handling charge of 7500 and dealership obliged on D-day and it costed me 8,27,500/-
Couldn't ask for more

[cool_dube]

For all the ingenuity of the marketing folks here, imagine the amount of paper that was wasted for this campaign :(

[Latheesh]

Originally Posted by GTO

Am sure many people first thought Skoda has left a gift outside their door early in the morning

That is a bad outcome, isn't it? Some expected a gift from Skoda and found the same news paper (they paid for) inside.

[Dieseltuned]

Was this approved by Skoda, OR is this some local dealer trying to garner some sales in his area ?

Was this limited to SOBO or all across Mumbai ?

If this was all across Mumbai and as per this website, HT has approx 4 lakh subscribers in Mumbai, that is such a criminal wastage of paper and the trees cut somewhere to make them. 4 lakh such envelopes dumped in a single day. :( talk about excesses and mountains of garbage in our cities.

https://www.themediaant.com/newspape...%20in%20Mumbai.

[d.j]

Definitely a very cool way to advertise. How successful are one’s PR engagements, reminds me of a common saying, can’t remember exact of it but somewhat meant as following - 50% of advertisement spends go waste, problem is we don’t know which one, coming by that point how would have Skoda measured the net result of this exercise?. And,

If I was in place for this, would have used some other medium, like a professional magazine or ET or something alike, here unfortunately the news reads X dead from state, I mean, likelihood of type of news on cover of a newspaper can be estimated, so I guess choice of medium could have been better on Skoda’s part.

May be some consumer behavior experts can highlight how would this eventually, in net way played in consumer’s mind.

Regards/DJ

[Excommunicado]

"Whoa, the 15-25 lakh crossover customer is really spoilt for choice, isn't he? Very, very tough.

We can actually split it up in 2 buckets. One with the Taigun, Kushaq, Creta & Seltos, and another (higher) one with the Compass, Harrier, Hector & XUV500 (soon, XUV700). In the former bucket, I would pick the Kushaq because it's a whole lot of fun to drive, is soon getting 6 airbags on the DSG and has a subwoofer (ICE is important to me) which the Taigun doesn't. I couldn't live with the Creta's concept car looks, while the Seltos badly disappointed me with its GNCAP rating (would consider the Kia as a purely city car though)."


Hey GTO!

I am on the verge of booking Kushaq based on your advice on a different thread. My brother is keen on going for 1.5 DSG hence that is the one we are opting for. I brought up TeamBHP in my conversation with sales-advisor and he knew who GTO is. I hope you know what weightage your opinion carries.

P.S.: Androdev's take on Kushaq 1.5 DSG did put a bit of doubt in my mind. Hence I asked my mum and brother to lead the way. Mum simply wanted the top model.
Also, thank you Shreyans for calling i20 fragile in one of your posts. I really liked that car but some ideas take root in your mind like inception.

P.P.S.: Thank you to all the BHPians. The average IQ of this forum is 130, atleast.