Skoda innovates with HT and TOI

The auto marketer tried a different experiment with each of the national dailies in Delhi and Mumbai.

Automaker Skoda on the relaunch of Skoda Octavia this month came out with a high decibel innovative print campaign in the Hindustan Times and Times of India across their Delhi and Mumbai editions.

On October 9, the automaker ran a gatefold innovation in the editions of Hindustan Times between the pages 12 to 17.

The campaign lured the reader with the head lights image of the car along with the message 'Unfold this page to find out why legends come back better'.

The unfolding appeared like opening gates for a car as two pages had to be flipped to right and left leading to a full size image of the new Skoda Octavia spread across four pages along with the inside features of the car on pages 13,14,15 and 16.

Speaking about the campaign, Shantanu Bhanja, business head and VP, marketing, HT Media, says, "We are always moving ahead with constant innovation and we are glad that the Skoda gatefold received such a positive response."

Kamal Basu, head, marketing, Skoda India, says, "The idea was to be different and bring about the Grandeur of the new car. I think we did well."

Earlier on October 7, readers of the Times across Delhi and Mumbai woke up to an unusual morning, finding the front page transformed into a classifieds (hatch back, sedan, SUV and luxury cars) page. It had the message saying 'Reasons to sell your car is just around the corner'.

The English daily had then pushed its front news page to page 2 with a full page Skoda ad on third, so even when people flipped the first page, they saw the Skoda ad first and then shifted the focus to the news.

Both the innovations had the Skoda message saying 'Legend is back and this time the story is bigger, better and bolder.'