IMB 513

VOLKSWAGEN INDIA: DAS AUTO, DIGITALLY

SEEMA GUPTA

Seema Gupta, Professor of Marketing, prepared this case for class discussion. This case is not intended to serve as an
endorsement, source of primary data, or to show effective or inefficient handling of decision or business processes.

Copyright © 2015 by the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. No part of the publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (including internet) –
without the permission of Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.
Volkswagen India: Das Auto, Digitally

By 2014, Volkswagen (VW) India had acquired 1.5 million fans on Facebook. It was the largest
automotive brand in India on Twitter and Linkedin and the seventh largest on Facebook. It was also very
active in search engine marketing. The marketing team at VW met to review the digital campaigns
created in the past and craft a digital marketing strategy for the future.

In 2011, VW had decided to make digital marketing a significant aspect of its marketing and allotted 7%
of its marketing communications budget to it. It set an objective of becoming the most popular brand
online in India. From only 5,000 fans on Facebook and 350 followers on Twitter in 2011, VW had
traversed a long distance in a span of 2 years on the back of its innovative digital marketing.

In 2011, VW shifted its strategy from gaining fans to engaging fans. VW had an engagement rate of
6.74% (percentage of fans interacting with the brand), which was the highest in the automotive category.
Lutz Kothe, Head of Marketing & PR said:

Our key performance indicator is engagement rate. This is an investment for the future as
many people who are engaging may not buy now but will consider VW when they buy in
future.

The challenge facing VW was how to break the clutter as people did not pay attention to ads on digital
media and to generate positive word-of-mouth. Bishwajeet Samal, Head Marketing Communications, VW
India said:

In digital media, VW is no longer a car company, but a content company. Perhaps, the
success of digital marketing would lie in how we leverage our community!

BACKGROUND

Volkswagen was established in 1937 at Wolfsburg, Germany. It has been the largest automaker in Europe
and second largest globally behind General Motors. In 2011, its market share in Europe was 20%; and
globally it was 12.3%. VW was the flagship brand of Volkswagen group, which also owned Audi,
Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, SEAT, and Skoda. Its core markets were Germany and China. It
aimed to become the world’s largest automaker by 2018. In India, the group was present with Skoda,
Audi, and VW. In 2007, the group launched Volkswagen in India with Passat. By 2009, the plant at
Chakan started manufacturing Polo and Vento. The new Beetle, Touareg, and Phaeton were fully
imported. Passat and Jetta were assembled from completely knocked-down units.

In contrast to expectations, the Indian auto industry started showing signs of decline in the 2010s. During
2012-2013; sales in the automobile industry declined by 6.7% and the outlook for 2013-2014 was also
dim. This caused a major setback to Volkswagen’s ambitious plans in the country. Gauging the scenario,
VW curtailed its expansion plans for India. The plan of launching ‘‘Up’’ in the mass hatchback segment
was also shelved. With no other launch planned until 2016, VW chose to focus on defending and
consolidating the market share. It also decided to leverage newer and more cost-effective mediums such
as digital marketing for building its brand.

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Volkswagen India: Das Auto, Digitally

Volkswagen has had a tradition of highly creative advertising globally. In 2011, Volkswagen India set the
objective of becoming the buzziest brand online. ‘‘Innovation’’ was identified as the common thread
across all digital mediums – search advertisements, display banners, rich online applications, website
designing, and social media (Exhibit 1).

India had around 73 million (Mn) internet users in March 2011, out of which 42.8 Mn were aged 15+
years and accessed internet from their homes or work places. This figure had grown at 13% from the
previous year (March 2010). Fifty-six percent users of this category were in the age group of 25 to 44
years, which was the likely target segment for Volkswagen. Social networking sites, business and finance
sites, and news and information sites had a reach of 85%, 49%, and 58%, respectively. i

The size of digital media marketing was around INR 11 billion (Bn) (1$ = INR 61, approximately in
2014), while the total advertising market was around INR 250 Bn in FY 2010-2011 as per Internet and
Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). Online advertising was expected to grow by 30-40% in FY
2011-2012 and automobile companies had increased their online advertising budget by 20-35% in FY
2010-2011. Maruti Suzuki, the largest automobile company in India, had increased its digital media
expenditure by 20% over FY 2010-2011. ii As per Google India Auto Report, 65% of the Indians used
internet as the first place to research for auto-related purchases and the auto vertical had registered a
growth of around 84% in FY 2010 on Google Search. iii

Building Awareness

When VW was launched, people were not aware of the brand and did not search for VW on the Internet.
Hence, VW spent minimally on search advertising in the beginning. Pankaj Borana, Manager - Digital
Marketing, VW India said:

Search does not give reach. Only few people search, within that only some percent will
see your ad based on quality score and bid amount.

Social media too was small and many brands did not possess Facebook accounts. So, VW focused mostly
on creating awareness through display ads. VW spent 50% of its digital marketing budget on display,
30% on paid search, and 20% on social media.

VW engaged a media agency – Mediacom to manage its paid advertising and creative agency – Grey
Digital to manage social networks and content for organic traffic. Pankaj Borana said:

Media agency knows more about costs, buying, and optimization; whereas creative
agency understands the brand better. So, the two complement each other.

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VW engaged media agencies on retainer basis, that is, by man-hours. Besides retainership, it incurred
paid media cost and development cost (building a microsite for a campaign). Sarath Nair, Mediacom said:

This is win-win for both client and agency. If clients are sure that there will be some
ongoing work, for example, in a year, 3 strategic campaigns and 5 tactical campaigns will
be done; then paying on retainer basis is more cost-effective than paying on project basis.
WPP – the mega agency of Mediacom – also encourages retainer model so that they can
build long-term relationship with clients.

For creating awareness, VW advertised on reputed, influential and high traffic news, and information
portals such as MSN, Sify, MoneyControl, and Yahoo. VW bought premium inventory and did not buy
ad inventory from run-on networks as they sold remnant inventory in which one could only choose
categories such as cricket, fashion, etc. and not specific websites.

VW paid special attention to brand association and did not advertise on sites that had sleazy content. It
bought premium ad positions such as above the fold and not below the fold of the page; and level-one
inventory meaning ads on home page and on page inside home page. It did not advertise on deep pages
within pages, as people did not access deep pages.

Initially, to increase awareness VW displayed advertising on mass portals. Over the years, it shifted from
mass display to targeted display. For example, earlier it advertised on Yahoo homepage; but later it
advertised on Yahoo Finance as the user was more mature and more likely to buy a car than a user who
was accessing entertainment.

VW also advertised on car portals and review sites such as Carwaale, TeamBHP, and Overdrive. Pankaj
said:
If consumers search with keywords such as ‘‘cars between INR 8 and 10 lakhs’’, car
portals will come high in the search engine result page (SERP). When they click on say
‘‘Carwale’’ and land on the site, they may see information about say Hyundai Verna. VW
will show display ad of VW Vento urging the consumer to consider Vento as well. The
ad may give an incentive to the consumers such as free accessories worth INR 20,000
with Vento. The ad induces the consumers to click, which then takes them to the website
of VW.

The planning process for display ads started with identifying websites frequented by the target audience.
Mediacom then obtained ad rates from those publishers. VW did not tie up with any ad network
(aggregators of publishers) for the long term as it received many good deals at the last minute when the
inventory was not selling.

VW identified the number of impressions it would need. It was familiar with the customer funnel and so
worked backwards. If the target was 1,000 conversions (sales), then VW had to determine how many
leads would be needed, for those leads how many click-through-rates (CTRs) would be needed; and for

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those CTRs how many impressions would be needed. VW was aware of the dropout rate at each stage of
the funnel.

VW would decide how many impressions would be sent to different publishers. Premium sites such as
Yahoo quoted higher rates and sold on cost per impression (CPM), whereas smaller sites quoted lower
rates and sold on cost per click (CPC). The inventory could be in the form of a standard banner, or a rich
media ad, or a video. The media agency would then prepare a specification sheet, which provided details
about each ad unit. The inventory was bought from the publisher and shared with the creative agency to
prepare the required creatives.

Mediacom then shared the creative with a third party server company, Mediamine for serving the ads. To
the publisher, Mediacom gave the tag instead of the creative, which the publisher used for insertions.
Mediacom received reports from the publisher as well as third party ad server. If there was discrepancy of
more than 10%, Mediacom contested the delivery of impressions with the publisher. Even when
Mediacom bought ad inventory from the ad network, it served ads through third party servers. Sarath Nair
said:

If I buy 2 million impressions from Yahoo, there's no way for me to know whether they
were served or not. Yahoo server gives the report but there has to be third party
verification. There's a small cost that we incur but this has to be done.

Initially, VW developed an inventory-based plan. It bought ad inventory from websites directly or

through ad networks. 1 The ad networks carried out contextual targeting. They advertised on websites with
related keywords and content. For example, a car brand would be advertised on car buying sites; if it were
a gourmet food brand, it would be advertised on cookery sites such as tarladalal.com. For instance, if VW
advertised on the Yahoo home page expecting a target audience of 25-40-year-old males, living in metros;
this ad would also reach females or males older than 40 years; and so there was huge wastage.

So, VW moved to audience-based planning. This was based on behavioral targeting which was done by
demand side platforms (DSP). DSPs allowed advertisers to buy ad inventory from multiple ad exchanges
using real time bidding (RTB) through a single interface. Ad exchanges were technology platforms
facilitating the buying and selling of ad spaces from several ad networks. DSPs used data collected from
cookies to profile and categorize audience into segments such as sports enthusiast, finance geek, etc. The
advertiser then bid for audience segments with the most relevant profiles. Mediacom worked with Xaxis,
a Group M, DSP. Sarath Nair said:

DSPs have increased our ROI. Now, I have cookie data about online browsing. So, I may
target those who have visited automobile sites, visited Yahoo finance page, and bought a
flight ticket online in the last one month. This audience has a higher probability of buying
a car and my campaign is likely to generate higher ROI.

1
Ad networks were aggregators of ad space from publishers. They would aggregate ad space and match them with demands and requirements of
advertisers.

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Networks optimized campaigns for VW based on the objective – clicks, impressions, leads, conversions,
etc. Since “auto” was a high involvement category, people searched for 3-4 months and had to be shown
an ad 3-4 times. Hence, optimization was done on a weekly or fortnightly basis. If certain sites performed
better in ROI, then the budget was shifted to those sites. Although, VW measured the performance of the
campaign for the entire customer funnel – impressions, clicks, leads, actual test drives, purchase, etc.; its
primary goal or metric was the CPL. Pankaj said:

If the starting point is CPM, say it is INR 100,000 for 50,000 impressions, then we see
CTR of say 2%. So, 1,000 people are clicking on the ad. Out of 1,000, say 10% convert
into leads, which is 100 and out of that 10% convert into sales, which is 10 people. Since,
I spent INR 100,000, CPL would be INR 1,000.

The cornerstone of VW digital advertising was innovation. Most of its display ads were rich media,
audiovisual ads. Some banners had in-built sharing capabilities, others had options to tweet, and still
others integrated a video player. VW believed in takings risks in digital marketing. For example, VW
made a banner which when clicked showed different features of a car brand – the first click revealed its
mileage and the second click revealed its engine power. So, the banner itself became an entire microsite.
Pankaj Borana said:

We believe in surprising the market! Typically, banners when clicked take users to a
microsite; but in this instance, we are not taking consumers anywhere. Everything is
happening on the banner itself.

Innovation enabled VW to gain a CTR much higher than the industry average – a CTR of 3% against an
industry average of 0.2%. VW believed that CTRs were a function of category, creative, and placement.
Categories such as telecom and automobiles had high CTRs. An innovative banner receives higher CTR
than a standard banner. For example, VW secured high CTR for its Polo GTSI banner ad in which the car
entered and left the page and re-entered the page. Pankaj Borana said:

There are various ad sizes such as 300 × 250 pixels on the right side of the page, 720 × 90
pixels banner called mast head on the top and some sizes on the left side of the page.
There are many possible combinations. We don't have to necessarily advertise on a 300 ×
250 pixels banner. We can create an ad by combining ad sizes such as 300 × 250 and 720
× 90 pixels along with the two left side banners of the page and can show our car moving
across the banner.

Media agencies played an important role in choosing the right placement, that is, right website with right
target audience. Placement was an art as well as science. For example, Polo GTSI, which was a driver’s
car, would arouse curiosity only among car driving enthusiasts and not among chauffeur-driven
customers. So, the agency placed the ad on auto portals and not on Yahoo finance as that person would be
more interested in the stock market than in automobiles.

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Volkswagen India: Das Auto, Digitally

Tapping the Consumer Intent

After awareness was raised through display advertising, VW found that people started searching for the
car on the internet. VW hence started investing in ‘‘search engine marketing’’, which included both
organic (also known as search engine optimization or SEO) and paid search advertising.

SEO involved the use of optimization techniques to improve the position of the website in a search
engine’s result pages (SERP). The higher the rank of the website on SERPs, the greater was the chance
that consumers would click on the site. VW procured 35% of its website traffic through searches, which it
felt was good as the medium was pull-based.

VW performed both on-page and off-page SEO. On-page SEO involved establishing the ‘‘relevance’’ of
the website to the keywords that the consumer was searching for. It included many factors such as the
keywords used, domain name, crawl ability, load time, and quality of content. Off-page was about
‘‘importance’’ of the content as numerous content pages compete for the same keywords. Importance was
established by the backlinks to the site. The task of performing SEO on a regular basis was entrusted to
the creative agency, Grey Digital. It submitted the site to Google and other search engines for indexing. It
identified keywords and optimized the website for them. VW also optimized images and videos as search
engines show not only text but also images and videos in their results. It listed in reputed directories such
as Yahoo directory so that it could obtain a backlink and new audience when people searched for VW in
those directories. It conducted online public relations campaigns with key opinion leaders and portals,
which also helped in obtaining backlinks. It gained quality backlinks from independent review sites such
as Carwale and TeamBHP. It put up display advertisements on car portals, which in turn carried articles
with backlinks to VW site. Apart from general SEO, the agency also optimized the site for long-term
marketing campaigns. Nikhil Shahane, Grey Digital said:

It makes sense to do SEO for a 4-month long campaign but not for 1-month long
campaign as SEO takes time to show results and is not so straightforward. Earlier, VW
Polo was not seen on SERP; instead mint and people playing polo showed up as search
results for the keyword “Polo”. We performed SEO and now VW Polo shows up at the
top.

VW also used paid search advertising. It placed search ads on Google Search Partners (partnership
between Google and many small search engines such as Ask) using the Google platform “Adwords”. It
paid the publisher on a CPC basis.

It divided the keywords into brand, competition, or category. For example, VW Vento was a brand
keyword, Maruti Swift was a competition keyword, and luxury car was a category keyword. VW focused
on brand keywords, as those consumers were already interested in VW. It identified the average number
of monthly searches for different models of cars to determine the size of the opportunity. It targeted to
reach 70% of the searches. For example, if average number of monthly searches was 1,00,000, VW
wanted to achieve a target of 70,000 searches.

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VW advertised aggressively on brand keywords as the consumer was actively seeking information about
the brand. Google also charged less for bidding on own brand keywords. VW bid conservatively on
category keywords as they were expensive and such consumers would prefer independent review sites
and car portals for comparison. For persuading such consumers, VW placed display ads on car portals. As
a policy, VW never bid on keywords of the competition. Praveen Pandey, Mediacom said:

We are good enough to generate our own leads; we don’t need to poach on somebody
else's search results.

ENHANCING THE WEBSITE EXPERIENCE

After clicking on the ad, users landed at the VW website. Grey Digital, the creative agency for
Volkswagen, managed the content of the corporate site and several microsites. VW created an
aesthetically and functionally appealing website to create a favorable image in the minds of users
(Exhibit 2). The home page often displayed the current flavor. It added customer-friendly tools such as
model locator, dealer locator, and interactive apps for an enhanced user experience. It built lead capture
forms on the website and set a target of total visits to test drive ratio of 1%. Pankaj said:

Once the user visits the site, the pictures of the car, the information displayed, and the
navigation experience play an important role in whether the consumer will go for a test
drive or not. Test drive is the most important metric for us.

It added a mobile WAP site to cater to the ever-increasing traffic from mobile phones and tablets. VW
also started a dealer portal to provide a common platform for the dealers and the sales team to interact and
address concerns. It also provided support to developing and maintaining dealer websites to maintain
consistency in communication. Apart from the corporate website, VW also started other strategic web
properties.

PLANET VOLKSWAGEN

VW conceptualized an immersive and larger-than-life brand destination called Planet VW in 2011, which
represented all VW activities on a revolving circular globe with each section designed around a specific
theme (Exhibit 3). It was a first of its kind innovation.

One of the important themes was ‘‘Think Blue’’ which spread awareness about the VW philosophy of
protecting the environment for a better tomorrow. It included elements such as Carbon Footprint
Calculator, Think Blue Blog, Think Blue Pledge updates, and Everyday Ideas. Another theme was the
‘‘Text Drive’’, a social media driven property that allowed users to participate in a virtual race. Each user
was given a car and the cars raced against each other by active participation in social media – share, post
content, Tweet, comment, like, etc. which pushed the car further. The key elements on the site included
Current Leaders, Live Feed Scoreboard, Number of Participants, and Awards. VW engaged with young
children through VW Junior, which had games, do-it-yourself cars, comics, contests, digital gifts,
downloadable content, and customizable merchandise.

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For attracting traffic to the planet VW site, agency used paid media and organic media. The budget for the
6-week-long campaign on digital media was INR 24 million. The target audience was the existing
customers, car enthusiasts, gamers, and kids in metros. The objective was to create awareness for Planet
VW and drive traffic to the site. VW placed display banners on popular sites such as MSN and Sify,
which on clicking, folded into a revolving globe, thus introducing Planet Volkswagen. The banners
secured a record number of clicks. The site received more than 1 million visits within 2 months of launch.
VW also seeded the sites on which conversations about cars were taking place. Sharath said:

We use social media listening tools to identify blogs hosting conversations on cars. Then,
we check the popularity of those blogs. If it is popular, then we do third party seeding
through comments from a user.

Unfortunately, the marketing budgets for Planet VW could not be sustained in 2012 owing to recession in
the automobile industry. Pankaj Borana said:

Now, more of the marketing money is going into tactical campaigns, which are leading to
test drives, and not into branding. Phase 2 was planned in 2012, but could not be
implemented due to budget constraints. Certain sections of the website are yet to be
completed.

Another ambitious project of VW was Das Traveler, a digital travelog to celebrate journeys. It provided
people a platform to share memories of their road trips. It hosted periodic contests and engagements. VW
partnered with Lonely Planet to source content. The user interface was mobile-friendly as VW believed
that the concept had more potential as a mobile app since people traveled with mobiles and received news
updates on their mobiles. It also conducted a blogger outreach program wherein it tied up with bloggers to
write for the site.

VW also started a portal for used cars - Das Welt Auto (Exhibit 4). The site facilitated online buying and
selling of used cars of all brands.

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

After the user clicked on either ‘‘contact us’’ or ‘‘take a test drive’’ button at the VM website, the
customer relationship management (CRM) team took charge of converting the prospect into a customer.
VW India has attained a global benchmark of calling back the customer within 10 minutes of filling the
test drive form on the website. It qualified the lead on the phone and enquired the prospect about his
location and preferred dealer. Based on preference, the lead was passed on to the concerned dealer and the
test drive provided. Bhavin, Sr Manager CRM said:

Earlier, the test drive form was a part of the ‘‘Contact Us’’ form. We made it a separate
tab on the home page so that people can find it easily.

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The CRM team then followed up with the dealer to know about the progress made by the prospect in the
buying cycle. The CRM team also directly made phone calls to prospects to obtain feedback about the
sales process. The consolidated data on the number of leads sent to dealers was shared with the Area
Manager. Dealers valued the leads and informed VW when the leads were converted into sales. VW
maintained the data in Excel sheets and was in the process of building automated CRM systems. Bhavin
said:

Many times, we are unable to close the loop in our system as it is manual and not
integrated. For instance, the enquiry may have been done in one name but car purchased
in another name or mobile numbers may be different at the time of test drive and final
purchase. So, we are unable to establish the cross linkages in our manual system. A
household may have two VW cars, but we cannot integrate them. Once we build a CRM
system, we may see common addresses and know that they belong to one household. We
do not have any data about direct walk-ins at the dealerships. An integrated CRM can
help us keep track of that.

The CRM team engaged with customers who owned cars by organizing free service camps. Customers
were provided free checkups and workshops gained cross-selling opportunities for accessories and
branded merchandise.

ENGAGING THE CONSUMERS

An important aspect of digital marketing was the social media. In 2011, VW had very few followers - 350
on Twitter and 5,000 on Facebook. VW realized that it must increase the number of followers because if
VW did not have fans, then whom would it communicate with? It set a target of increasing the number of
fans by 15 times in the first year. VW had instituted a policy of not increasing the number of fans by
unethical ways.

To engage with fans, VW created a content calendar for all the platforms. It decided to post more videos
and images, as they had higher engagement rates compared to text posts. VW believed that social media
played three different roles – brand building, online reputation management (ORM), and CRM. Brand
building was about cultivating awareness through mentions and buzz. ORM was about managing public
relations – having a positive sentiment about the brand. CRM would be achieved when the FB page
became as rich as the website so that people could view various car models, take test drives, and those
leads were converted into sales by the CRM team. VW wanted to bring all its customers on to its FB
page, so that it would be easy to communicate with them. About 30% of its customers were on the VW
FB page.

To give fillip to the social media, VW decided to integrate social media with each of its digital
campaigns. VW conducted its first social media centric campaign during IPL 2011. It created two online
platforms – VWlive.com and tweementary.com. VW Live provided minute-by-minute updates on IPL as
and when it occurred. It was faster than even the TV broadcast. On Tweementry, the best of the web and
Twitter was shown. Pankaj Borana said:

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There is immense reach on social media platforms. We just have to create some
interesting content, package it nicely, and piggyback on the social media platform! We
create a platform within the platform!

#ANYTHINGFORJETTA

VW launched New Jetta in 2011 with an interactive social media campaign (Exhibit 5). The budget for
digital media was INR 2.5 Mn. Its objective was to increase unaided brand awareness to 60%, create
conversations about the car, and increase its desirability. VW did not plan campaigns around festivals, but
around launches. Although new product launches were infrequent, VW added new variants regularly, to
sustain excitement in the market. Grey Digital was given a brief that Jetta provided so much driving
pleasure that people would do anything to own the Jetta. The agency decided that instead of telling people
that they would be induced to do anything to drive the Jetta; the agency would organize a contest for
people to reveal what they would do to acquire the Jetta. The platform chosen was Twitter as Jetta was a
premium car targeted at an audience of successful and passionate males, 25-44 years of age, and
belonging to SEC AB. Don Bosco, Director Planning & Strategy, Grey Digital said:

Twitter audience is older than that of FB and hence more suitable for Jetta. We chose
Twitter as it gives instant response, enables live conversations, and has no time lag. FB
has a time lag. In Twitter, people want to participate in something that is trending and the
audience is witty. In Twitter, people don't reveal their identity, as handles do not reflect
names. So, people are free to express themselves.

VW created the Twitter hashtag #anything4jetta. The tweet that would get maximum retweets would be
the winner. All the tweets were redirected to a microsite, which populated new tweets in real time.VW
prepared video content showing people doing quirky stuff for Jetta such as singing on the road,
controlling the traffic, or dancing at a board meeting. The Twitter contest was launched nationwide
through full front page ads in the Times of India and The Hindu. Don Bosco said:

The biggest push came from the newspaper ad because it was released on the front page
and it was novel – in a different quality paper, shining, glossy with hash tag in big and
bold letters.

It released interactive teaser banner ads online in the form of a game in which characters appeared on the
screen and users had to type them correctly very fast. If they misspelt any character, the Jetta would
disappear from the frame. So, users would do anything to keep Jetta within the frame. Nikhil Shahane
said:
Digital is about engagement. Before the launch, why not release a teaser ad, a preview,
and a hook with which we can entice the users to participate in the campaign.

When VW started the campaign, there were only 3 million users of Twitter in India. VW released banner
ads on Yahoo where a viewer could tweet from the banner itself and enter the Twitter contest. However,
to win the car, they had to register themselves. Such was the impact of the campaign that the number of

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Twitter users increased by 15% after the campaign and #AnythingforJetta became the No. 1 trending
topic on Twitter (272,200 tweets in 3 days) and received 1,442 test drive requests. Navin Kansal,
Executive Creative Director, Grey Digital said:

If we had limited ourselves to the Twitter users, we would have never seen the kind of
participation that we received. Portals typically do not allow third party API to run on
their websites. So, you cannot submit data directly from Yahoo to Twitter. But, we
persuaded Yahoo to create a banner from which the user could tweet directly. This was
first such thing in India.

JETTA TSI YOUTUBE TEST DRIVE

VW launched a campaign in July 2012 to increase leads for test drives for Jetta TSI on YouTube (Exhibit
6). The campaign took the test drives from roads to viewers’ desktops, tablets, and mobiles. The idea
behind the YouTube test drive was to engage users and allow them to ask any questions about the car just
as they would in a real world test-drive. Banners for these campaigns appeared on websites such as
MoneyControl, Economic Times, MSN homepage, YouTube, and Yahoo. These were multi-functional
banners with a search query bar, video player, and social sharing options integrated in them. VW
responded to user queries through customized video responses made in a humorous manner. They were
featured on a special customized YouTube channel. The customer was informed through email that the
answer had been posted. Sudhir Nair, SVP & Head, Grey Digital said:

The insight gained was that some test drive experiences such as 0 to 100 km are not
possible in our crowded cities. Moreover, all dealers may not have the Jetta test drive
model as it is financially not feasible to keep all models for test drive. Also, users may
have many questions in mind but not motivated enough to approach a dealer and ask. So,
we created a virtual experience.

VW preempted the questions and created about 15 videos for queries such as how much mileage would
the car give or how much time would it take to accelerate from 0 to 100 km. It was a 3-week-long
campaign and 53 videos were shot. The results testified success - reach of 21 million unique users against
a planned reach of 10 million users, over 888,733 video views in 21 days, 517 unique questions, 700%
increase in channel subscribers, CTR of 0.74%, 1.3 million clicks, and an additional 13,846 Facebook
fans. The total campaign expenses were around INR 21 Mn, out of which INR 15 Mn was spent on digital
marketing.

FUTURE OUTLOOK

The marketing team at VW pondered whether the innovative digital campaigns would turn tables and set
it on the path of growth? How could it make internet the key driver for increasing the leads and test
drives?

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How could it continue to break the clutter and engage fans? One of the challenges faced by VW was that
the social media (Exhibit 7) was not integrated – there was separate communication for different social
media – FB, Linkedin, and Twitter. Pankaj said:

Common messaging is challenging because different platforms have different strengths.

So, what is appropriate for Facebook might not work for Twitter. On Twitter, people are
creative and intellectual; on YouTube, people are receptive; and on FB, people are
casual!

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Volkswagen India: Das Auto, Digitally

Exhibit 1
Awards

Digital Property/ Awards (Medals)

Campaign

Corporate Website 1 Gold – IDMA, 1 Silver – IAMAI

Anything4jetta Gold - Best Integrated Campaign (IDMA)

1 Silver – IAMAI, 2 Silvers – IDMA

1 Bronze – IAMAI, 4 Bronze – ABBY, 3 Bronze – Campaign DMA

Outstanding Digital Campaign (afaqs reporter)

TextDrive 3 Bronze – ABBY

Volkswagen Live 1 Bronze – ABBY

Source: Company

Exhibit 2
Website
Exhibit 2A
Website Analytics

Web Analytics: January 2011 to July 2012

Total Visits 4,307,976

Total Page Views 33,718, 289

Total Test Drive Requests 2011 28,664

2012 30,444

Total 59,108

Visit to Lead Ratio 1.37%

Source: Company

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Volkswagen India: Das Auto, Digitally

Exhibit 2B
Dealer Portal

Source: Company

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Volkswagen India: Das Auto, Digitally

Exhibit 3
Planet VW
Exhibit 3A
Planet VW Display Ad on MSN

Exhibit 3B
Planet VW Display Ad on Yahoo

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Volkswagen India: Das Auto, Digitally

Exhibit 3C
Planet VW Campaign Performance

Web Site Bought Impressions Actual Actual CTR Delivered %

/ Clicks Impressions Clicks

Yahoo 1,95,00,000 2,00,63,602 2,73,087 1.36% 103%

Rediff 41,00,000 74,13,835 12,429 0.17% 181%

MSN 70,00,000 71,47,882 5,358 0.07% 102%

In.com 25,00,000 26,78,816 7,224 0.27% 107%

Sify 7,50,000 7,50,502 1,192 0.16% 100%

Ibibo 25,00,000 31,31,363 13,732 0.44% 125%

Zapak 30,00,000 34,51,781 1,29,865 3.76% 115%

Ibn Live 35,00,000 38,67,829 5,076 0.13% 111%

Times Of 16,50,000 19,14,557 5,339 0.28% 116%

India

Economic 15,00,000 17,89,541 3,057 0.17% 119%

Times

Komli 2,20,000 13,23,16,784 2,40,245 0.18% 109%

Google 82,000 4,31,43,246 1,57,216 0.36% 192%

Facebook 70,000 8,01,03,896 70,164 0.09% 100%

Exhibit 3D
Planet VW Website Analytics

Website analytics: October 2011 to December 2011

Total Visits 1,117,579

Total Page Views 1,792,392

Source: Company

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Volkswagen India: Das Auto, Digitally

Exhibit 4
DasWeltAuto Portal

Source: Company

Exhibit 5
Anything for Jetta
Exhibit 5A
Anything for Jetta Launch Ad in TOI

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Volkswagen India: Das Auto, Digitally

Exhibit 5B
Anything for Jetta Search Ad on Google

Exhibit 5C
#AnythingForJetta Trending on FirstPost

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Exhibit 5D
#AnythingForJetta Tweet Strip on Afaqs

Exhibit 5E
#AnythingForJetta Tweet Strip on Yahoo

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 Volkswagen India: Das Auto, Digitally

Exhibit 5F
#AnythingForJetta Screaming Banner on Yahoo

Exhibit 5G
#AnythingForJetta Digital Plan

Site Section Placement Ad Size Buy Impressions Est. I2C Duration

Clicks %

Yahoo News Expando 300*250 expands to CPM 1,000,000 3000 0.3 1 Month
banners 450*250

Finance Banners 300*250 CPM 500,000 1500 0.3 1 Month

Economictimes Homepage Fixed 300*125 expands to Fixed 2,000,000 4000 0.2 2 Day
Banners 600*125

ROS Banners 300*250, 400*400 CPM 1,200,000 2400 0.2 1 Month

Moneycontrol All sections Banners 300*600, 300*250 CPM 500,000 1000 0.2 1 Month
(ROS)

Portfolio Logout 500*500 Fixed 360,000 900 0.25 3 Days

Banner

Homepage Fixed 180*300 expands to 1,000,000 2500 0.25 2 Days

Expando 490*300

Value My Portfolio Fixed 728*90, 160*600 Fixed 540,000 1080 0.2 6 Days
Research Banner

Homepage Interstitial 120,000 600 0.5 2 Days

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 Volkswagen India: Das Auto, Digitally

Homepage Fixed 250*250 420,000 840 0.2 6 Days

Banner

ROS 160*600, 250*250, CPM 800,000 1600 0.2 1 Month

300*250

Times News, Video pre- CPM 1,000,000 5000 0.5 1 Month

Audience Finance, roll
Network Cricket

Carwale ROS Banners 300*250 CPM 800,000 2000 0.25 1 Month

Linkedin ROS Banners 300*250 to 600*250 CPM 500,000 1000 0.2 1 Month
(Targeting
Senior
Management)

Text Links CPM 500,000 1000 0.2 1 Month

Rediff Moneywiz Homepage + 300*600 CPM 4,000,000 8000 0.2 1 month

ROS

Display Total 15,240,000

Ad Networks

Komli News, Standard 300*250, 700*500, CPC 15,000,000 30000 1 Month

Business, Banner 120*600, 460*60,
Finance, 160*600
Auto,
Technology

Ad Network 15,000,000
Total

Search Engine

Google Text + Text + banners ads CPC 24000 1 Month

Banners

Search Total 0

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Volkswagen India: Das Auto, Digitally

Exhibit 5H
#AnythingForJetta Digital Cost Allocation

Exhibit 5I
#AnythingForJetta Display Cost Allocation

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Volkswagen India: Das Auto, Digitally

Exhibit 5J
#AnythingForJetta Display Campaign Performance

Exhibit 5K
#AnythingForJetta Search & Network Campaign Performance

Exhibit 5L
#AnythingForJetta Clicks Performance

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Volkswagen India: Das Auto, Digitally

Exhibit 5M
#AnythingForJetta Business Performance

107,000+ Page views on Volkwagen.co.in on the first day

2237 Enquiries at dealerships across India on the first day

1307 Calls at the call center on the first day

707 Cars were sold during the campaign period

Source: Company

Exhibit 6
Jetta YouTube Campaign

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Volkswagen India: Das Auto, Digitally

Exhibit 6A
Jetta YouTube Campaign Print Ad

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Exhibit 6B
Jetta YouTube Campaign Microsite

Exhibit 6C
Jetta YouTube Search Bar Banner

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Exhibit 6D
Jetta YouTube Campaign Impressions Performance

Exhibit 6E
Jetta YouTube Campaign Click Performance

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Volkswagen India: Das Auto, Digitally

Exhibit 6F
Jetta YouTube Campaign Unique Users Performance

Impression is a measure of the number of times an ad is displayed, whether it is clicked on or not.

Pageview is a request to load single HTML file (webpage) of an internet site.
Unique user/Unique visitor is the individual visitor to a website who is counted as a single visitor irrespective of the number of times he/she visits
the site. If your ad has 1,000 page views but 500 unique users, that means on average every person who viewed your ad saw it twice.

Click-through-rate is the number of clicks on an ad divided by the number of times the ad is shown (impressions) expressed as a percentage.

Exhibit 6G
Jetta YouTube Campaign Business Performance

Total Video Views 888,733

Total Videos Shot 53

Total Time Spent 441, 944 hours spent watching videos.

Test Drive Requests 465

Car Sales 110*

Source: Company

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Volkswagen India: Das Auto, Digitally

Exhibit 7
VW Social Media Performance

Social Media January 2011 December 2011 July 2012

Facebook fans 6,432 50,342 880,420

(Rank 6 in India)

Twitter followers 823 7,885 8,812

(Rank 1 in India)

YouTube views 9,806 103,286 885,460

Linkedin members 2240 6580 9550

Source: Company

ENDNOTES
i
Kedar Gavane, State of the internet with a focus on India, comScore, June 2011.
ii
http://www.livemint.com/Consumer/dfNWDgV1tPpBV90qRdeJWJ/Online-advertising-set-to-grow-as-more-firms-explore-digital.html
iii
http://www.business-standard.com/article/press-releases/india-auto-industry-googled-111080900128_1.html

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