Marketing leader Meredith Kelly shares why Skoda's recent campaign put pictures of flamingos and raccoons across Europe

Insider

Meredith Kelly, the global head of marketing for Skoda, talks about the company's rebrand and how it reimagined automotive marketing in its recent Be More campaign.

Transcript

00:00We shifted our brand from being a very value-for-money, functional offering

00:05and really uplifted the brand in every aspect,

00:08shifted it into a more emotional space as a brand.

00:18Skoda is part of the Volkswagen Group.

00:20It is a brand that operates in over 70 markets,

00:24however, not in North America.

00:27We sell around about a million cars a year

00:30and we are one of the Volkswagens,

00:33so along with brands like Audi, Porsche, Cupra,

00:37Skoda is part of the portfolio and the Stabler brands.

00:41So Skoda is one of the oldest car manufacturers in the world.

00:45It celebrated its 130-year birthday this year

00:49and it has had a very long and interesting history

00:53and has a very rich heritage.

00:56We still refer back to Lauren and Clement,

01:00who are the founding fathers of our brand,

01:02who started by manufacturing bicycles in Europe,

01:07which is quite interesting because Skoda is also one of the main sponsors of the Tour de France.

01:16So we love the link.

01:18We started making bicycles and we are still involved in cycling today.

01:23Skoda has been hugely successful recently.

01:26Year to date in 2025, we are sitting as the third largest selling brand in Europe.

01:33In 2024, we finished as the fourth biggest selling brand in Europe,

01:38which is quite phenomenal.

01:40We have grown from being, we were around about number eight, two years ago.

01:48So we've really had a very fast rise.

01:51So we have completely rebranded.

01:53We did a huge facelift in terms of our CI.

01:56We shifted our brand from being a very value for money functional offering

02:02and really uplifted the brand in every aspect,

02:05making sure that people still see great value in what we offer from a functional perspective,

02:10but also really see a greater connection emotionally.

02:14This year, we launched a new electric model called the Elrock

02:19and we had a massive campaign across 26 markets in Europe called Be More.

02:26It was very surprising.

02:28We had huge pictures of flamingos, raccoons across Europe,

02:34which sounds surprising for an automotive brand.

02:37So the whole idea was we used metaphors as a way to explain the features of the new car.

02:44So for instance, we used curious facts and connected them to the car.

02:51So interesting fact that a cloud can travel over 500 kilometers a day,

02:56which is the same as the range of the new vehicle.

02:59So this very interesting, curious way of making our brand stand out,

03:04particularly because automotive advertising has become a little dull

03:11and a little predictable in recent years.

03:13And we wanted to make sure that our brand stood out and also in a more entertaining way.

03:19a delightful branding way.

03:22held

03:29handheld

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