Beauty and Brains. How we supercharged the Audi Premium 2015 - 2018

Audi had been on an impressive winning streak since 2000 in the UK, coming from half the sales of leader BMW to leading in 2014. Despite the gains made, the brand’s growth was within the lower specification and less profitable cars in its portfolio. It also lagged competitors on price and being seen as desirable and innovative, a core part of the brand’s identity and with a proven link to future sales. A new strategy was needed. This is the story of how we supercharged an already premium brand between 2015 and 2018 by defining the feeling of ‘progressive premium’ and telling the story of ‘beautiful cars with amazing brains’. The result was a new chapter to the Vorsprung durch Technik journey, a creative high point for Audi and a return to dominance in perceptions around innovation and brand desire. This helped sell more cars at higher specification, grow 3x faster than the UK market and 2.5x faster than Audi globally, close the price gap to competitors, increase lifetime customer value, create £1.8bn of incremental sales, a revenue ROMI of £1:£27 and a profit ROMI of £2.07, the highest Audi has ever recorded. https://ipa.co.uk/knowledge/case-studies/beauty-and-brains-how-we-supercharged-the-audi-premium-2015-2018