The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2015
Volvo skips a Super Bowl ad, turns rivals' spots into #VolvoContest — Cannes Grand Prix
Instead of paying for a Super Bowl spot, Volvo asked viewers to tweet #VolvoContest during rivals' car ads to give a deserving person a new XC60.
Volvo Cars
What it had to solve
For the 2015 Super Bowl, Volvo Cars and agency Grey New York skipped the usual paid car commercial and looked for game-day attention on people-first terms.
How it works
For the 2015 Super Bowl, Volvo Cars had no spot on the broadcast: the brand deliberately chose customer-driven philanthropy over the year's most expensive media. Its agency, Grey New York, proposed making the whole game Volvo's stage instead of buying one thirty-second window.
The mechanic inverted the usual Super Bowl play. Whenever another carmaker's commercial aired, viewers were asked to tweet #VolvoContest, naming a person who deserved a new Volvo XC60 and why. Volvo's team responded to the flood of nominations and picked five winners.
The winners were ordinary people nominated by family and friends: a photojournalist, a Peace Corps literacy volunteer, a behavioral-health nurse, a nonprofit leader and a family man. Volvo delivered all five cars and let the stories carry its people-first positioning.
Judges at the 62nd Cannes Lions Festival called the campaign a smart, strategic, creative and real-time use of media, and handed Grey New York a Grand Prix from 2,813 entries.
Why it lands
- It converted competitors' paid airtime into Volvo's own call to action: the more rivals spent on spots, the more chances Volvo had to appear in the conversation.
- The giveaway made the people-first brand line tangible: viewers, not the brand, did the talking, and winners were real people nominated for their lives rather than for marketing appeal.
- It let a smaller media budget act like a much bigger one by riding the Super Bowl's second-screen behavior instead of trying to outspend the category leaders.
- The judgeable outcome was unusually concrete: five XC60s given away, each winner's story published, and a Cannes Lions Grand Prix among 2,813 entries.
What it did
The campaign earned a Cannes Lions Grand Prix (picked among 2,813 entries), and Volvo delivered five new XC60s to winners nominated by family and friends.
What you can take
You do not need the biggest paid stage: rivals' own commercial breaks can become your media if you give the audience an action and a reward for the exact moment they are watching.
Since then
Volvo delivered the five XC60s across the U.S. and published each winner's story as the campaign's human proof. Grey New York collected the Grand Prix at the 62nd Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, where the jury praised a smart, strategic, creative and real-time use of the big game's media. The idea became a reference point for live-event marketing: rather than buy the stage, invite people to act exactly while your rivals perform.
Sources
- Grey NY Stages 'The Greatest Interception Ever' for Volvo
- Volvo Cars Announces Greatest Interception Ever Winners and Earns Cannes Lions Grand Prix for Campaign
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