Increasing Volkswagen’s
Market Share by 800%

Despite its global dominance, Volkswagen ranked only 14th by market share in Singapore, even trailing behind Suzuki. We pitched for the account against Ogilvy and Saatchi, and won.

Our research showed that Singaporeans, like motorists everywhere, pay close attention to what their peers are driving. In Singapore, not enough people were driving Volkswagens. Our seemingly simple advice was to “sell more cars”. Which would mean more Volkswagens on the road. Which would mean they’d sell more cars. Which would... well you get the idea.

Here are the three strategies we recommended:

– Focus on media that reached a large number of potential buyers.

– Focus on one car per advertisement to visually stand out.

– Focus on securing test drives.

Within 36 months, Volkswagen’s market share had increased from 1.3% to 10.1%, moving them from 14th to 4th place — a nearly eightfold increase. We then applied the same strategy to the Mazda account with similar success.

Below is some of the work we built the brand with. You’ll notice how consistent it is with the product always as the hero.