Volvo pondering, Part 2: What does Volvo’s advertising say about me?

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By Peter Mooney, Special to the Los Angeles Times

Volvos 2008 ad campaign simply refuses to play it safe.

Since I’ve long considered myself to be a stereotypical serial Volvo owner, I decided I’d love to check out all the 2008 Volvo commercials. With the exception of one commercial that looked like it was an homage to that crazy Liz Taylor White Diamonds perfume commercial they seem to dust off and run about every ten or twenty years, I enjoyed viewing them all very much.

But, as in a night filled with a variety of dreams, it’s always the nightmare that sticks with you the longest. And this spot with the Liz Taylor Gamblers, the film cutting back and forth between one dramatic yet inexplicable scene to another, and the female spy or undercover model wearing Undercover Girl makeup who is picked up off of a yacht by a helicopter in the middle of the ocean to be whisked to who-knows-where for who-knows-purpose is still with me.

Now, a week later I believe I know what this commercial’s subtle message is–‘If you have no idea what this action packed TV commercial is about, you’re not alone. Very much like you will never be alone in your Volvo for reasons too numerous to list here in only thirty seconds.’

But the other commercials were definitely beautiful and filled with the kind of family togetherness, warmth and love so many of us got the pleasure of experiencing right up to the day our spouses threw us out and filed for divorce.

Yes, they felt that real.

But you might notice that the vehicles are filmed driving on ultra-scenic windy roads. I was positive these were the same windy roads used in every BMW commercial I saw when I was working with BMW four or five years ago and felt compelled to pay attention.

Yes, car commercials showing the cars driving on a beautiful windy roads. Perhaps you’ve seen such a thing before yourself.

I remember having to hold myself back when somebody at BMW told me they were thinking seriously about changing their TV campaign showing their cars driving on beautiful windy roads because it was beginning to appear to BMW that perhaps other automotive advertisers were beginning to copy it.

Oh my aching back. I thought to myself, this is like saying ‘everybody is copying my idea where I use a can of tuna and some bread to create something I’m currently considering calling a tuna sandwich.

Anyhow, back to the 2008 model year Volvo spots. Apparently they have moved on from their classic safety strategy. I have read this was the result of consumer research, which showed buyers were not as interested in that message as much anymore. The research indicated a strategic move to another positioning entirely.

This move served to remind me one of the things I would often suggest to the Sacred Keepers of the Consumer Research in meetings like the one I imagine Volvo attended before making this strategic shift: Everybody has the same research. Predictably, everybody comes to the same conclusions. Then we all write commercials to the same new strategy and all of the advertising ends up looking and sounding the same.

I experienced this phenomenon over and over again. I would like to suggest to you that when you see similar ad campaigns from five different competitors in any category, from cars to dog food, nobody is copying the others commercials. These commercials came out of the same research that led to the same strategy that led to what looks like the same ad campaign.

Advertising professionals are nothing if not superb followers.

So, if you’re Volvo and the research clearly indicates car buyers just aren’t as interested in safety anymore, you drop everything and wait earnestly for the presenter to deliver the new, updated silver bullet strategy for 2008. I’m guessing they said customers today are more interested in luxury and prestige. When I was working on Acura, that’s what the research indicated as well as ‘safety isn’t as important to consumers anymore. I bet the research company is actually recycling old research figuring, since pretty much nobody over 50 is left in advertising, who’d notice?

Now, we’re going to see more fashion-like commercials for Volvo. We were forced to do the same thing for Acura around 1994. It’s a very hard thing to pull off. (We didn’t.) Then if you through some magic succede you just look like everybody else.

But more importantly, where does this leave me, the now out-of-date classic Volvo buyer? Me, the one who used, that’s right, used my Volvo with the clean Scandinavian design to tell the world I’m not playing the fashion game here. I’m practical. Plus, I don’t want to be killed by a drunk or simply psychopathic driver? How will I get my message out now to the people who need to know what I’m all about? Do I have to buy a Subaru to zig while others zag?

I don’t want a Subaru.

You know what I would have suggested to Volvo if I had been at this meeting where it was reported safety was no longer as interesting to people as it used to be? I would have said what I often said at such a strategic dog and pony show, maybe we made safety uninteresting. Maybe if we could go back and come up with some new, wildly creative ways of touting our great safety story and then these people would say, ‘hey, wait a minute! I’m suddenly interested in safety again.’

But now that I think about it, I’m sure everybody’s throwing out whatever strategy they had a week ago and focusing on gas mileage, even Hummer. So, as the late Gilda Radner would say “never mind.”