Volvo

Since the very beginning, Volvo has built the foundations of its business around safety. The two are synonymous. But as other premium car manufacturers adopted the same safety features that once gave Volvo an advantage, Volvo was in danger of losing its distinctive edge. So, Volvo came to Grey in search of a global brand platform that could give its heritage in safety a new role in the world. The truth is that Volvo’s dedication to safety has always started with people, not cars. Initially, their focus was just on protecting the individuals driving their cars. But we saw an opportunity to tap into the powerful motivation behind Volvo’s commitment to safety and elevate it from a product feature to a lens through which to view the world.

What if Volvo didn’t just help protect those inside the car, but actually helped protect everyone outside the car?

This fitted perfectly with the evolution of technology that protects pedestrians and more recently sustainability initiatives that are actually helping to protect the planet through actions they take as a business.

In 2021 we launched the biggest sustainability campaign yet, ‘The Ultimate Safety Test’ where we re-framed climate change as a safety issue. The Ultimate Safety Test is not any of the crash tests that Volvo are famous for, but climate change, which no amount of airbags or sensors can protect us from. We developed a complete campaign eco-system to engage with the brand’s point of view on climate change at the top, backing that up with targeted messages in social and digital to explain how Volvo is answering the sustainability challenge – and finally pulling through to promote Volvo’s range of pure electric cars, sold onlinFront collision tests.

The Ultimate Safety Test announcement marked a firm and public commitment to the world. Volvo Cars will now fully electrify their fleet in a few years time, and Volvo Cars is putting in place a new operation to reduce the lifecycle carbon footprint per vehicle by 40 percent by 2025. The integrated campaign received 23.6 million views, 118 million impressions

The result? Volvo achieved their best results in 12 years with double digit sales growth. Volvo has closed significant perception gaps against key premium competitors, driving up consideration and purchase intent – allowing Volvo to raise pricing up to the luxury German brands. And they are now the largest premium hybrid brand across Europe, showing success in our planetary safety vision.

For Cop 26 in Glasgow, we launched an OOH and Twitter campaign #ZeroOmissions that again put Volvo at the front of the climate emergency conversation by highlighting how far car manufacturers have to go before they are truly environmentally friendly, starting with stats from Volvo’s own EV fleet.

Inspired by Volvo’s new features that help read emotional state, we then launched a global fully-integrated campaign around mental health safety, all laddering up to our brand platform. From epic film to digital and in-dealership assets we launched the new EV with style.

We’ve also been awarded for creativity and effectiveness including winning in Cannes, Effies, IPA Effectiveness Grand Prix and D&AD.