Made in Sweden, Loved by Brooklyn
Client: Volvo North America
Strategic Service: Creative & CX
Team: Kristen Morrissette (Client Lead), Josh Combs (Creative Lead), Ophelia Stimpson (Strategy Lead), Diego Machado & Fernando Carrion (Art Direction & Copy), all AKQA.
Opportunity
Goal: Drive customers to Volvo Brooklyn’s virtual showroom & book a test drive
Market: North America
Audience: Brooklyn residents av. HHI $120k+
In 2020, the global pandemic threw a curve ball at the entirety of humanity. Not least the car industry, whose brand and customer experience – due to the high value nature of car purchases and reliance on test drives – is more heavily reliant on in-person contact to generate sales.
Volvo came to use to help overcome the barrier of COVID-19 preventing in-person contact and car sales in their Brooklyn showroom. How could we stir up brand affinity and demand for Volvo against all odds?
Idea
The strategy was two-pronged. The most glaring need was for a digital solution to the test driving experience – which manifested in Volvo developing a virtual showroom for their Brooklyn branch. Customer persona and user journey mapping then led us to tweak copy and alerts that would better drive users to book a no-contact test drive.
The second prong of the strategy required outstanding creative to capture people’s attention and drive them to the virtual showroom. Our research found that Brooklyn residents had many shared values with the Swedish culture from which Volvo hails – such as social progress, sustainability, staying local and being in nature. This led to us landing on the campaign platform Made in Sweden, Loved by Brooklyn.
Execution
We needed to find a way to make Volvo relatable to Brooklynites. We chose to partner with Swedish-born Brooklyn resident Fredrik Berselius, head chef and founder of decorated local restaurant Aska. Fredrik’s presence allowed us to speak about Volvo at the intersection of all the values our strategy highlighted – social progress, sustainability, nature, the power of local… and how the outlooks of Swedes and Brooklynites are intimately related.
A content partnership with Fredrik (video below) helped us land the campaign on social, with highly targeted OOH and digital media placements to drive Brooklyn residents to the virtual dealership. Localised audience mapping allowed us to bolster our creative campaign with email and BTL comms tailored to the Made in Sweden, Loved by Brooklyn messaging to help Volvo resonate as authentically as possible.
