The 1996 Octavia should have set the template for all future Škoda models, but it didn’t turn out that way.
In a piece I recently penned on another Volkswagen Group model, I opined that the group’s four mass-market brands are insufficiently well differentiated from each other, so the scope of their market coverage in Europe is narrower than it should be and there is a greater than optimal overlap between brands and models, inevitably leading to some cannibalisation of sales. Ideally, their market positioning should be broadly as follows:
- Audi: premium luxury and sporting.
- Volkswagen: semi-premium, nominally classless, but certainly perceived as upmarket of mainstream rivals.
- SEAT: youthful, stylish, fashion-conscious but not too avant-garde or left-field.
- Škoda: budget, practical, strong value proposition, car as domestic appliance.
How might we Continue reading “It Should Have Been Simple”
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