The most important algorithm is understanding your customer: Skoda’s Ashish Gupta

Skoda Auto India is strengthening the link between brand building and business outcomes, with a sharper focus on relevance, differentiation, trust and AI-led storytelling, said Ashish Gupta, Brand Director – India, Skoda Auto.

Speaking at the e4m India Brand Conclave 2026 in Mumbai, Gupta explained how the automaker is reshaping its marketing strategy to stand out in India’s highly competitive automotive market. “Brand building and how brand building can actually help in what truly matters to me, that is the sales volume and the profits that we drive for the company,” Gupta said while opening his session.

Gupta highlighted India’s rising importance in the global automotive ecosystem. “India last year became the third largest automotive market in the world. We sold close to 4.45 million vehicles in a single year… today we are the third largest automotive industry in the market just behind China and the US and it's a growing market,” he said, adding that growth has intensified competition and clutter.

To navigate this environment, Skoda has anchored its communication around three core pillars. “We very clearly last year defined our three pillars of communication… we call these three pillars as relevance, differentiation and trust,” he said. Emphasising the importance of credibility, he added, “Trust is built by consistency, trust is built by transparency and trust is built by showing up for your customers every day.”

Driving relevance at scale has meant expanding both product and distribution. Referring to the launch of the Kylaq, Gupta said, “With the Kylaq when we entered the market with a sub 1 million product, it was important that we also go closer to the customers with our price points and also through our network,” noting the company’s expansion from 120 dealers to nearly 325 touchpoints across 183 cities.

The company has also leaned into consumer participation and digital-first activations. “We started first of all by getting a lot of involvement from customers right from the product concept stage to the launch stage where we started with Name Your Skoda campaign,” Gupta said, adding that the initiative received nearly 100,000 entries. He also highlighted a quick-commerce collaboration: “We tied up with Zepto for a 10-minute test drive, never been done before. It was a logistical nightmare… but we managed that,” which resulted in “a reach of more than 100 million, 63% increase in brand searches on Google and… 10,000 bookings in 10 days.”

Alongside mass-market relevance, Skoda focused on aspiration-led storytelling. “The entire objective was to drive differentiation for the brand, to drive desirability for the brand which can then flow into your mass product,” he said, describing the Octavia RS campaign and brand extensions designed to engage enthusiasts.

Gupta stressed that innovation now goes beyond the product and into storytelling and execution speed. “It includes how we launch cars, how we tell stories and how do we create impact in a cluttered manner,” he said, citing the new Kushaq campaign. “Two weeks ago, we unveiled the new Kushaq which is hitting the market in the third week of March and there we used a lot of human insights, creativity but used AI and computer graphics to scale fast and implement our ideas fast.”

Summing up the shift in modern marketing, Gupta said, “This is how brands capture attention, build meaning and move from campaigns to communities.” He concluded by underlining the importance of simplicity and consumer understanding: “In the age of acceleration, simplicity when used creatively can be your biggest asset. For me, the most important algorithm is understanding your customer.”