Before White Cloud · In-house role

Seven brands, one in-house team

Building and leading an in-house agency of 13 for Audi, Porsche, Volkswagen, Volkswagen Commercial, ŠKODA, SEAT and CUPRA.

← All work

Volkswagen and ŠKODA launch and event stands: Polo, Tiguan Allspace, ŠKODA at Fieldays and at a motor show

From my in-house career, before I founded White Cloud. Like all in-house work, this was a team effort. I built and led the department. The results below belong to the whole team and the brand teams they worked alongside.

  • Company: European Motor Distributors (Volkswagen Group New Zealand)
  • My role: Group Head of Digital and Customer Experience, and deputy to the General Manager
  • Timeframe: 2020 to 2023
  • Headline result: One team of 13 serving seven brands. CRM click-through rate of 25% against an industry average of 14.8%.
Volkswagen and ŠKODA launch and event stands: Polo, Tiguan Allspace, ŠKODA at Fieldays and at a motor show
Launches and events across the brands: Volkswagen Polo and Tiguan Allspace, ŠKODA at Fieldays and at a motor show.

The situation

Digital and marketing work for seven car brands sat across different teams. The group needed one function that could deliver for every brand without losing each brand’s identity.

What we did

  • Built the in-house agency: design, copywriting and production, websites, paid media, search, marketing automation, community, events and marketing operations
  • Set up shared roles, processes, tools and briefing templates across departments
  • A Customer Journey programme to improve experience and lead generation
  • New dealer websites for ŠKODA and Porsche, and “Volts”, a Volkswagen chatbot
  • Upgraded CRM and customer lifecycle programmes
  • E-shops for ŠKODA, Volkswagen and Audi, selling accessories and brand products
Who does what: the central team covers digital experience and events, CRM, data and lead management; each brand keeps its own brand activities
The operating model: what the central team did for every brand, and what stayed with each brand.

What changed

In the department’s first full year, compared with 2019 (EMD 2020 in review):

  • Leads generated by the central team up 77%, to 16,201
  • Paid search conversions up 224%, to 154,784
  • An email open rate of 47.6%, against an industry benchmark of around 30%
  • Website sessions held steady, down only 2%, through the first lockdown
EMD central team 2020 in numbers: leads up 77%, paid search conversions up 224%, 47.6% email open rate, 3.27M website sessions, 1,177 chatbot queries, 3 e-shops
The department’s first full year, compared with 2019.

Over the following years:

  • One team of 13 serving seven brands
  • A search project recognised by Google as the country’s best-performing automotive initiative
  • A CRM click-through rate of 25%, against an industry average of 14.8%

What I learned

A central team is easy to draw on a slide and much harder to live. Seven brands need to feel they still own their identity.

Being clear about what the central team does, and what stays with each brand, mattered more than any tool or process.

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