Moving up a gear – how scandal accelerated innovation at VW

This event report explains how Volkswagen, the car manufacturer, used a brand crisis to bring forward innovative projects and overhaul its marketing strategy.

The emissions scandal that cost Volkswagen billions of dollars in fines and brought one of the biggest names in automotive into global disrepute actually focused the business on the need for innovation, its communications chief told the Festival of Media Global 2017.

Oliver Maletz, Head of International Communications & Media Planning at VW, said the 2015 events that came to be known as "emission-gate" brought forwards planned work on longer-term projects, such as the development of electric cars, by focusing the business on what needed to be done, while they were in the public eye.

The discovery that Volkswagen vehicles...

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