Volvo Moves Gingerly To Be Sexy

Anthony Fontanelle
August 30, 2007

Volvo Cars has long established a name for quality and safety. In the past decades, the Scandinavian brand has espoused numerous safety features that served as momentous milestones for the auto industry. Now the brand is targeting a brand new goal to bolster appeal and sexiness by flaunting those gorgeous curves.

But can a car brand be both safe and sexy? Will the feat of the former compromise the latter? Or vice versa?

Watchers in the industry noticed that Volvo brand is trying to walk that marketing tightrope with a new global marketing campaign which is set to start next month. The campaign aims to lure auto shoppers by tapping into the ‘fun people’ rather than concentrating. This is an apparent deviation from Volvo’s traditional focus on cutting-edge safety features.

Volvo’s ad campaign covers print and five different television spots. The first ad will be launched in movie theaters in America on the 7th of September. The company uses a brand new tagline: Life Is Better Lived Together.

In one 60-second spot, a daredevil couple rides yachts, helicopters and a new Volvo luxury sedan for a breathless meeting celebrating their anniversary, reported Wall Street Journal. Other spots are more light-hearted. In one, a couple, their friends and a wayward donkey watch a sunset in Italy after nearly colliding with the animal in a new Volvo. In another, a fleece-clad couple picks up a climber and hikers on an Italian mountainside while a version of the children's song "The Wheels on the Bus" plays in the background, the report continued.

Unlike past campaigns, industry watchers say Volvo’s ads highlight fun activities people can do with loved ones. “It is a big departure for Volvo, whose brand image has long been associated with safety, a result of many years of marketing that emphasized safety features in its vehicles. But while that made Volvo popular with families, it hasn't made the brand as attractive for younger people. Facing anemic sales, Volvo, a unit of Ford Motor, hopes the campaign can help change that,” wrote Stephanie Kang of the Wall Street.

"For the past ten years or so, everything was about safety," said Pete Favat, the chief creative officer of Arnold Worldwide's Boston office, which created the global campaign with independent ad agency Nitro. "Safety is very rational. But a car still has to be sexy. Being with loved ones and going to do cool things together is sexy to us."

But experts say that the risk is that the new ads could alienate Volvo's traditional shoppers. Dean Crutchfield, the senior vice president of marketing for Wolff Olins, a branding firm owned by Omnicom Group, said: "When a brand is true to its origins, it's a success. When it's not, it isn't.”

The maker of those Volvo C70 radiators declined to divulge how much the campaign cost but said that marketing spending was up so far this year over last year. Volvo spent $21.5 million on advertising in the U.S. for the first three months of this year, compared with $19.5 million in the same period a year ago said TNS Media Intelligence.

Volvo hopes its new campaign will help differentiate it from bigger luxury-car rivals from Germany and Japan, said Tim Ellis, the director of global advertising.

"We're competing with the BMWs and Audis of the world. We have to have a unique take on the luxury segment. If we were to go and try to really stretch brand perception that was not quickly identified with Volvo, it would have been an uphill battle," noted Ellis. "We found something which is consistent with what the brand stands for."

Source:  Amazines.com