CUPRA: How attitude, passion and determination can drive an unstoppable impulse

There are few bigger challenges in business than launching a new brand. My team and I were lucky enough to have done it with CUPRA in early 2018. At the time, a lot of people thought we were crazy, creating a new automotive brand when there was a lot of consolidation in the industry and some other brands were disappearing.

But in just four-and-a-half years, CUPRA is already becoming a desirable brand, with a dedicated following. In 2022 alone, we have announced our intention to double CUPRA’s sales, unveiled plans to enter the metaverse, announced six electrified models and, most recently, expanded our global presence by taking the brand to Australia. With seven CUPRA City Garages around the world and developing partnerships with our CUPRA Tribe members and world-renowned entities such as FC Barcelona, we have created a brand for a new generation. One which brings emotional experiences not just to driving, but to every part of life.

Although we’ve only just started as a brand and are very much at the beginning of our journey, I want to take a moment to look back on the challenges we have faced along the way. It’s clear to me that three things have helped us maintain the essence of our brand at a time of disruption: belief in our vision, embracing uncertainty, and staying true to our essence. With attitude, passion and determination, every brand can create its own unstoppable impulse.

?Challenge the conventional

At CUPRA, we don’t write down exactly what the future is going to be tomorrow. I was asked at the beginning, “where is your brand strategy book?”. And I said “We’ll write the book when we’ve done the story, because if we write it now it’ll be based on past experience or other stuff and it’ll end up being boring. And we don’t want to do anything that’s boring”.

Part of this is about having the courage to make mistakes along the way. If you believe in the direction you’re heading and aren’t deterred, you can achieve some really remarkable things. Some people would describe this as ‘trial and error’. I agree with the ‘trial’ part, but most of us don’t have the time or resources to make too many errors. It’s important to stay agile so you can adapt to an ever-changing environment.??

This mantra follows all the way through to what we’re doing with our products – proving that electric vehicles can be emotional and sexy. We’re a brand for people who want to stand out – but stand out because they stand for something.?

?See crisis as an “opportunity”

There are many times in our lives where we face a crisis and must decide how to respond. In these moments, the worst thing you can do is stop.

We have launched CUPRA in one of the most challenging economic and social environments in decades, facing one crisis after another: a global pandemic, a shortage of semiconductors, the war in Ukraine, and now the energy crisis. All these challenges made us more efficient, robust, and resilient – it’s hard to imagine what would have happened if we had given up in the face of adversity.

I saw these crises as an opportunity to fast-track our vision and as a business to transform faster to 100% electrification. We made decisions to support the demands of future generations, not those of today and have made the business more robust for the long term. The past couple of years have tested us in many ways, but if they hadn’t been so difficult maybe we wouldn’t have made as much progress. At CUPRA, we have the mindset to go out and win, and this attitude has got us to where we are today. No matter what disruption you face, it’s important to stay optimistic.?

Stay true to yourself and inspire the world

In 2018, we had the ambition to launch a disruptive new brand that stood out for its contemporary values. We were a small group of true believers who wanted to challenge the status quo.

We make cars that some people love but not everybody will like, and that’s okay. It’s not a good sign when everyone in a room likes the car. You need to challenge your team – challenge them, but give them space. Shock me, provoke me – and then I know it’s going to be good stuff. So you need people around you, you have to empower them, give them that spirit that they can really do exceptional stuff and there are no limits.

At CUPRA, we believe that there’s a new generation of drivers looking for something different than what their parents and grandparents drive. Everyone at CUPRA stays completely focused on this and meeting this audience where they are, which means increasingly digital. But everything comes back to those fundamental principles and beliefs – we will always keep what I call our ‘speedboat’ style.??

Only when you truly know who you are can you go out and take on the world. We have the potential to become a truly global Spanish brand, of which there are very few. But to do this we need to stay true to our beliefs and keep that challenger mentality.

The past few years are only the beginning for CUPRA. This year alone, we plan to double our turnover, double our sales, and double our dealer network, and we also have plans to continue our global expansion. Looking further ahead, we want to become one of the world’s 100 most valuable brands and electrify our range by 2030 – we also want to reach 500,000 deliveries. We aim to turn our vision into reality and it’s only when we’ve achieved this that we’ll be able to say we’ve done our job.

This ambition will only be possible through the people that are behind it. As I always say, at the end of the day it’s the people that make the brand. Our employees, customers, dealers, investors, partners and other stakeholders – they’re our CUPRA Tribe and hold the key to the success of CUPRA.?To anyone out there building their own brand: be bold, authentic, generous and resilient. As I say, ‘hay que salir a ganar’, we need to go out to win.?