With the Volvo XC90 2.0 “Wedding” campaign, John and his team sought to challenge some long held norms in narrative TV advertising.  

Originally conceived as one 30-second spot, the wedding narrative grew through the development of a robust backstory, one that initially generated more questions than answers. To fulfill the campaign’s online media plan,15-second ads were produced. These shorts not only delivered a clever way to highlight key features of the XC90, like seating for seven, but they also provided the viewer with more clues and more questions, creating a groundswell of interest and driving people to the Internet and social media for resolution. Ultimately, a 3-minute, long-form film was released to encapsulate the entire story.

Bottom line: the highly emotional campaign worked. Not only did it drive search and web traffic to Volvocars.com, it helped propel Volvo to the “5th most searched car brand in 2016” according to Google and reported in Motor Trend magazine. The XC90 2.0 campaign also became a topic of conversation on local newscasts and radio, while fueling countless Facebook conversations and Twitter posts. In formal post testing that utilized Brandwatch, Kairos and iSpot to measure sentiment, emotional response and engagement, the campaign moved the brand in every key metric and exceeded Volvo’s KPIs.