Title	SALES ONLINE – HOW TO SELL A CAR WORTH OF 25 000 EUR IN THE INTERNET?
Brand	SKODA
Product/Service	SKODA SALES ONLINE
Category	C02. Challenger Brand
Entrant	PHD MEDIA DIRECTION Warsaw, POLAND
Idea Creation	PHD MEDIA DIRECTION Warsaw, POLAND
Media Placement	PHD MEDIA DIRECTION Warsaw, POLAND
PR	PHD MEDIA DIRECTION Warsaw, POLAND
Production	ISOBAR POLAND Warsaw, POLAND
Post Production	ISOBAR POLAND Warsaw, POLAND

Name	Company	Position
Maciej Mszyca	PHD Media Direction	Digital Manager
Łukasz Kazimierczak	Isobar	Senior Account Manager
Maria Kiełczyńska	PHD Media Direction	Managing Director

Background

Automotive is one of the last strongholds successfully resisting ecommerce trends. And yet we know that two trends rule the life of a modern consumer: 1. We open and close online shopping paths - 43% of customers looking for a given product on the Internet later bought it in this channel. 2. Showrooming and webrooming affect the way customers make purchasing decisions. As more and more industries move their sales channels to the Internet, automotive sector seems to be stuck. The average number of dealership visits dropped dramatically - from 3.5 to 1.4. Simultaneously, we are seeing an increase in the number of website visitors. Most of the process is now online - from comparing different models, to reading information on technologies, pricing and financing, finishing with setting up your dream car and requesting an offer. Dealership visit to see and purchase the car remain as only two undigitized points.

Describe the creative idea (30% of vote)

Relying only on a traditional sales model is not enough. Our creative concept was based on a need to build an online sales channel fully tailored to the needs of modern consumers. We decided to create SKODA Sales Online and Virtual Showroom. SKODA Sales Online is the first online store in the automotive category in Europe. The service allows you to select a car and purchase it in the form of a company or consumer leasing. All formalities take place online. Virtual Salon is a tool that allows you to experience meeting with a dealer without leaving your home. The whole experience is conducted by SKODA’s experts in two models by means of live streaming. The first one is one-to-many which expert presents selected functionalities and technologies in a given model. The second, one-to-one is a personalized service during which customer receives all the information related to the chosen product

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

Our strategy was to fully transfer the customer journey to online and digitalize any offline touchpoint to create a full e-commerce experience. To create made to measure consumers’ needs communication strategy we used PHD proprietary survey – Motorization DCJ in which we study every detail of the digital customer journey to find every media placement that could lead to sales. Basing on that we build the Everywhere Store Strategy – an approach that makes every media touchpoint a selling one. Basing on this knowledge we have created the seamless path which allowed us to build interest and desire and than warm consumers to the idea to buy car online.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

From the start the promotion was planned to be a longterm one. We divided it in two parts. First part was focused on the promotion of the e-shop and the showroom through PR activities. It was launched on March 2019. We published articles in every main tech, automotive and business-oriented media outlet. We partnered with a leading financial influencer – For Money – who shot a video about our solutions and appeared as a brand ambassador on the morning show – Dzień Dobry TVN. The second leg of the campaign, more robust one - strating from March also and enchanced in September 2019, focused on performance and precise targeting to lead a consumer who already was on the path to finalize it. We used channels delivering the highest conversion rates – GDN, Facebook and Search – automatically optimized for hot leads and “add to basket” conversions.

List the results (30% of vote)

The campaign has exceeded all expectations. The cost of acquiring a lead fell by 54% compared to the traditional performance campaigns conducted so far. The conversion rate for sale from validated leads increased 10 times. In total, in the period III 2019-IV 2020, we sold 250 cars in this channel (goal was 100). Real sales results from this innovative sales channel for the automotive industry exceeded our expectations - online sales accounted for 1.36% of all sales to individual customers (goal was 1%). What is more, the average selling price in the online channel was 5.9% higher than the average selling price of Skoda in 2019. Thanks to the simplification and closing of the path in the online zone, we have not only made life easier for our clients and increased the effectiveness of performance activities, but also gained full control over the process and access to valuable data.

Please tell us about how the work challenged / was different from the brands competitors

Current selling process in motorization sector is good, it is working. But we cannot pretend that the world isn’t changing. As the typical new car buyer is above the age of 35 the full impact of e-commerce buying patterns hasn’t reached us. Yet. But as more and more of the younger consumers are entering the market – a trend we perceive as distant will close on us. Just like the view in review mirror – the object in the vision is closer than we think. SKODA Poland was the first in its category in Europe to think about transferring its selling process from offline to online. It was a pioneering idea, but as a change is coming we decided to met it head on. To let the brand grow and be ready to meet consumers expectation just in time they will enter the market.