Saints & Warriors wins Skoda

Two months ago, afaqs! had reported about Skoda opening the floor for a creative pitch for its forthcoming variant of the premium hatchback, the Fabia. The same proved to be a model pitch for the entire Skoda business. Reliable sources confirm that Saints & Warriors has bagged the entire Skoda account in India.

When contacted, Pushpinder Singh, founder of Saints & Warriors, declined to comment on the same. Tarun Jha, head, marketing, Skoda India, was unavailable for comment at the time of filing the report.

At the time of filing the report on Skoda’s pitch, it was learnt that Skoda will allot about Rs 10 crore for its new launches this year – one of them being the new hatchback, which is being launched specially keeping in mind the fact that the Indian hatchback segment is expanding. The refurbished hatch will be launched tentatively in the third quarter of this year.

The agency has bagged the business following a multi agency pitch. The incumbent agency on the business is Law & Kenneth, which won the whole Skoda account in 2007, when a similar pitch was called for the Fabia.

Currently, Skoda has a range of models running in India, including Laura, Fabia, Superb and Octavia, and Saints & Warriors will be the custodian for the same. Law & Kenneth was also handling the creative duties for the company's boutique shops in the country, but it is learnt that these duties are also to move to Saints & Warriors.

This is possibly one of the biggest wins for Saints & Warriors, which has primarily focussed on the communication for Indian brands till now.

Mediacom is the AOR for Skoda in India and there is no change on that front. Prior to Mediacom, Motivator was the media agency, which now handles the Honda Jazz account.