Škoda
“You Said It” – Reddit Car Share
A world first – we announced the 4th gen Skoda Octavia to the UK via Skoda’s biggest fans: the Reddit community. 2 countries, 1,494 miles covered, and all in just 4 days, our “You Said It” car share campaign has catapulted the Octavia to cult status amongst petrolheads!
Context
In 2024, Škoda was set to release the new fourth-generation model, marking the next chapter in the Octavia’s legacy. But, there was a huge 3-fold issue …
- Falling sales: over the past eight years, despite two new model launches, the Octavia’s UK retail sales had been in steady decline, becoming increasingly reliant on less profitable b2b (fleet) sales. Škoda needed a campaign to reverse the trend. If it couldn’t, then this would likely be the Octavia’s last mass-marketing investment, condemning it to a future as a forgotten fleet-filler.
- Known but not liked: the Octavia was well-known but not well “liked”. Despite high awareness (93%), the model was ranked bottom of its category for ‘brand likeability’. This didn’t mean it was disliked; people just didn’t feel anything positive towards it.
- Low customer perception: Despite being built with the same parts as the acclaimed VW Golf and Audi A3, customer perception was comparatively dire. The Octavia ranked last in its segment on every model image score, even on its strengths of ‘practicality’ and ‘value’.
Therefore, we had to uncover that single, undeniable idea—the core truth capable of resurrecting this weary brand and propelling it to legendary status.
The Insight and Idea
Our underlying truth was clear … in the Reddit community, there existed a loyal and adoring Octavia fan club that could be unleashed to spread Skoda Octavia fandom and provide a classically soulless car with a newfound personality. This gave birth to the world’s first “Reddit Car Share”.
The Opportunity
The key opportunity then was to empower “the faithful few” to evangelise our brand. We did this first by identifying the Octavia fanatics on Reddit’s r/CarTalkUK, harnessing their passion to organically amplify hype and recruit new fans through a Redditor car share. And second, by truly earning the Reddit community’s blessings, and thus successfully on-boarding them as our brand reps, by learning their rules (“the 10 Reddit commandments”).
Our Results
By authentically igniting the conversation inside the Reddit community, we enabled Skoda to strike gold both conversationally and commercially. Key results included: total mentions of Octavia in Reddit “R/CarTalkUK” up by +46.8% post campaign; Octavia became the most talked about car in this group (beating the A3 to the top spot), doubling their share of the conversation to 48% of the car category in this group; brand likability grew by +10%; no.1 ranked for “value” and “practicality” customer perceptions in the sub-segment; and car orders up by +255%, with the campaign creating an incremental 919 sales, equating to an additional £25m in revenue.