What it had to solve
Launch the Škoda Fabia in a market where three homegrown brands share almost half the market, and most buyers watch video reviews and virtual test drives before choosing.
The idea
Place the underdog's digital posters in the background of YouTube review videos of its dominant rivals — ads inside the reviews themselves.
How it works
Škoda paid YouTube to insert digital posters of the new Fabia into the backgrounds of influencer review videos for Peugeot, Renault and Citroën cars.
What it did
No results reported; the buy placed Škoda inside the exact moment French buyers compare cars — the rivals' own review videos.
Background
Škoda is far from the leading car brand in France, where Peugeot, Renault and Citroën together hold almost half the market. For the launch of the new Fabia, it used that underdog status as the idea: a campaign called 'Review Hacking', created by Track DDB, put Škoda's own ads inside online reviews of its rivals' cars.
The insight came from how people now buy cars: growing numbers watch YouTube reviews and virtual test drives before making a final decision. Škoda paid YouTube to insert digital posters of the Fabia in the background of influencer reviews for its French competitors, so the underdog appeared inside the exact content buyers used to judge the market leaders.
Why it lands
Car buyers increasingly decide from influencer reviews and virtual test drives, making those videos the real showroom.
As an underdog, Škoda could not match the incumbents' media weight — so it rode inside their content instead.
The three French rivals' combined share of almost half the market made their review videos the category's default viewing.
What you can take
If you can't outspend the leaders, meet buyers inside the content where the leaders are being judged
Since then
Adweek covered the campaign as an example of brand media hijacking; no campaign results were published in the material.
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