Skoda

"Paul Feldwick * says that there are two separate parts of marketing which are saleability and sales and before you can actually sell something you have to give it basic saleability. A perfect example of that is Skoda, which has done a huge heap of advertising — whether they are now successfully selling Skodas is debatable, but over the past eight years what they’ve undoubtedly done is they’ve returned Skoda to basic saleability."

"Under the umbrella of the holding company, the brands Dywidag, Züblin, and Heilit+Woerner Bau GmbH are maintained alongside the group’s main brand, Strabag – the latter had come to Strabag with Walter Bau. However, the entire company network consists of more than 80 subsidiaries – from A like Abfall Behandlung Recycling GmbH to Z like Züblin Umwelttechnik GmbH. At first glance, this may seem confusing, but in the world of large corporations, it is entirely common for numerous brands to gather under the umbrella of a holding company. For example, the Dutch-British consumer goods corporation Unilever operates with 40 brands: from Axe, Becel, or Coral, via Lätta, Lipton, and Lux, to Thea, Timotei, and Unox. The largest European automotive group, Volkswagen, has ten other brands alongside its main brand VW, from Audi, Bentley, and Bugatti, through Scania, Seat, and Skoda, to Porsche."

"Two investigations Rupert requested to be done showed that he seriously considered entering the beer market at this early stage in his career as entrepreneur. The one was to find out where the best brewing equipment could be obtained − typical of Rupert, only the best was good enough. Heusschneider told Hoogenhout during a conversation that the Skoda factories in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, were the best bet. Establishing a brewery with a capacity to produce 120 000 bottles a month would cost about £100 000, he said."