ŠKODA Advertising Through the Ages

ŠKODA is a traditional brand with an eventful history. Over the past 121 years, the movers and shakers have time and again proven their creativity and innovative spirit – with bicycles, motorcycles and cars, as well as in breaking long-distance-driving records. The history of advertising impressively illustrates the brand’s adventurous journey – from the first advertisements in 1900 and the Planned Economy to modern online marketing.

16. 1. 2017 Škoda World Heritage

Advertising is not a solely modern phenomenon; archaeologists have discovered 4,000-year-old adverts in Egypt. Of course, the Pharaohs didn’t laugh at TV commercials or see billboards with prominent celebrities touting exquisite fragrances. But market criers from Alexandria to Thebes were vehemently and eloquently promoting their treasures; Semitic merchants were chiselling product lists in stone tablets two thousand years ago. With the invention of the printing press, and later radio, TV and the Internet, advertising took on an entirely new dynamic, reaching millions of people around the world at the touch of a button. Just as in the past, advertising is still a matter of taste, reflecting society in its respective era, but with a single goal: promoting sales.

Václav Klement and Václav Laurin recognized the importance of advertising very early on. In 1895, when they laid the foundation for one of the world’s oldest manufacturing companies, they first advertised their innovative bicycles, then motorcycles. This was the beginning of several exciting developments from the pioneering period, through two world wars, the colourful 1920s and the Planned Economy and TV spots, up to modern viral clips on Internet. The company always knew how to capture the zeitgeist perfectly. That gives us a good reason to travel once again through the colourful history of ŠKODA advertising.

fabrika — The L&K factory in Mladá Boleslav

Weighing in on the zeitgeist: Václav Klement was actually a bookseller, but a bicycle purchase and a chance meeting with the mechanic Václav Laurin in Mladá Boleslav led to the founding of Laurin & Klement – L&K – in 1895. The two had not only a first name in common, but also a mutual understanding that made them ideal business partners. From then on, they built bicycles together in Mladá Boleslav under the brand name ‘Slavia’, and advertised them as state-of-the-art – as seen here in this poster from 1898. Obviously, pretty ladies were seen as a good sales argument even in those days.

The automobile as evoking elite status: This picture from May 1926 shows the first President of Czechoslovakia Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk standing proudly in front of his brand-new ŠKODA Hispano-Suiza at Lány Castle. As appropriate to his standing, he drove a model from the local Mladá Boleslav brand, albeit with special additions, such as a glass partition between the cockpit and the passenger compartment in the rear. Despite the difficult environment in the years between the two world wars, ŠKODA’s innovative spirit was particularly evident. In addition to the advertisement with the President, the company focused on headlines about long-distance tours. Advertising and journeys testing reliability were sensationally promoted on flyers, posters and brochures, as well as notice boards.

The pride of Czech mechanical engineers is captured in this picture from 1961. The four-seater L 200, an aircraft bearing the Morava brand name, poses here for the camera with an updated ŠKODA FELICIA. In their day, both were strong ambassadors of their country. At that time, the carmaker from Mladá Boleslav exported high-quality vehicles even to Western Europe, Australia and South America. Sales were also promoted in these regions with textually and graphically compelling advertising.

As the Warsaw Pact slipped quickly into history, the company was reprivatized in April 1991: The fact that the sale to Volkswagen AG was not purely a marriage of convenience, but rather a love match, was illustrated in campaigns like ‘IQ + ♥ = ŠKODA’ by British agency Sedley Place Design and the agency GGK. Here, the advertising experts brought their know how and passion for the automotive industry into a coherent and globally comprehensible equation. But it was not only the advertising that was progressively changing: at the turn of the new century, one of the most modern automotive plants in Europe of that time was built in Mladá Boleslav. The ŠKODA OCTAVIA rolled off the production line here from 1996.

With the arrival of the second generation of the sporty ŠKODA FABIA RS, the related TV commercial got a bit edgier too. The advert opens with a shot of a television screen playing the original and well-known “Cake bakers” ad. As the story unfolds, however, the bakers soon surrender to a much tougher, darker and more technologically enhanced production team that is creating a “bolder” FABIA RS. Components of treacle and jam make way for a body of bone, a snake-powered engine and unorthodox finishing techniques.