Background Advertising agency Fallon began representing Škoda in 1999, and its first campaign was for the first generation of the Fabia supermini, the successor to the
Felicia, in early 2000. While the previous advertising agency,
Grey London, had succeeded in improving the company's image, Škoda cars were still the butt of many a joke, and were seen as "
naff" by British consumers. Fallon took a lighter, self-denigrating approach - the strapline of the first series of ads (
Vandal,
Factory Tour) played off the disbelief of the public that a Škoda car could be of high quality, using the strapline "It's a Skoda, honest." The campaign was a tremendous success, dramatically reversing public opinion of the brand. Sales of Škoda vehicles increased by record amounts during the period in which the campaign aired. Upon the launch of the second generation of the Fabia, Fallon chose to shift the focus away from improving the Škoda brand as a whole and towards pushing individual aspects of the cars. The strapline for the Fabia, with its numerous "smaller, helpful features", such as hooks for
carrier bags in the
boot to keep shopping upright, was to be "full of lovely stuff". The idea for a commercial based around building a car out of cake came from a conversation between
creative directors John Allison and Chris Bovill whilst sharing cake on Valentine's Day. Approval was given for a campaign on a cake theme targeting couples aged 35-plus, Palmer's plan was to shoot the production of an actual life-sized Fabia cake with little or no
computer-generated imagery. All decisions were to be made on the fly, during the production itself. though preliminary work such as casting moulds for the Rice Krispie panels was done a week beforehand. Ancillary elements of the campaign, such as the
online presence and
direct marketing, were handled by advertising agency
Archibald Ingall Stretton, who had worked with Škoda for eight years prior to
Cake. The online elements of the campaign included a dedicated
microsite, which was linked to through baking-themed banner ads placed on the sites such as
The Times Online,
AOL, and
Top Gear. For the direct marketing portion of the campaign, Archibald Ingall Stretton sent out car-shaped a double-chocolate, toffee-fudge cream scented
air fresheners in the mail to potential and former clients.
Sound The sound was recorded at Wave Recording Studios by sound engineer Parv Third. ==Release and reception==