In a mock-hip-hop video style ad shot by music video director Dave Meyers, where the women wear plenty of shiny bling bling, the men hang out 'chillin' and hip hop provides the thumping soundtrack - the spokesperson with the tagline is L.L. Cool J who turns to the camera and says "When it starts showing up in music videos, don't let the style and flavor mess with your mind. It's still built like a Volvo."
Volvo wants the S40 to be known in the USA as the cool car, not just the safe car. Can they have it both ways? from Forbes:
"We have a car that is nimble, fast and cool," says Thomas Andersson, Volvo's executive vice president for marketing in North America. "All of a sudden, for the target audience, we've taken down the barriers to consideration. Safety can become an added value."
Can they have it both ways? Methinks the proposition line gets
crowded when you want to own two selling points - why didn't they instead, try and make safety itself cool?
Have LL cool J escape a rapper-assasination attempt in a Volvo and hit a tree as he flees, walking away from the crash unharmed and as cool as only LL can be, completely unfettered. Add hip hop music, babes and bling-bling, and lots of fancy explosions. That might even work.
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What a shameless ploy to get the dangerous, hip-hop set to lend some cool to the Official Vehicle of Soccer Moms! Volvo can charge 50 grand for the thing, but at the end of the days, it's a friggin' Volvo. No amount of mucking about with Bling Bling can change that!
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PermalinkThe ads I've seen for Volvo in Mexico are lean toward being a cool performance rig. Based on the ones I've seen on the autopistas there's truth in the advertising. They seems to really like taking the curvy mountain roads at a high rate of speed.
LL Cool J doesn't really have true "street cred" anymore. He's been considered a safe endorser for quite some time.
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PermalinkPersonally I don't think that guy was *ever* cool, but then I don't see how anyone from the hip hop/rap scene who had genuine cool could be cajoled to do an ad for volvo, or any car for that matter.
Volvo are in for some hard times if they insist on dragging their image from one end of the spectrum - 'safe' to the other - 'dangerous'. With all the air bags and ABS, there's no modern car that says Rebel. The consumer-rebel buys a car made in the sixties with no air con., those old-style seat belts and a crumple zone that starts where your teeth normally are.
If Volvo has heaps of money to blow on this push then they should set up a race team in one of those touring car series' -- that'd eventually yeild some amount of respect/brand recognition from whatever audience they're trying to reach with this current ad.
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PermalinkPeople who deny that Volvo is as "bad ass" as it is have obviously been too afraid to ever test their manhood by getting behind the wheel of one! Because if they had, that person would realize that it is just as every bit as nimble and quick as any BMW or Audi on the market and still as safe. Companies should advertise it's strengths; so should Volvo be castrated by critics who don't understand that Volvo has strengths all the way from one end of the spectrum to the other, unlike some other companies (BMW, Mercedes, all of Asia). I am in the age group that Volvo has targeted for the new S40, I dont think LL Cool J changes the image of the company or car, and I have thought that Volvo's are the coolest car company since I was old enough to sit in the safest baby seat in the world. There was a little truth to one of the comments made, Volvo should definitely have a manufacturer sponsored race team. Finally, I have always been in Volvo's and will always drive them; everyone should, but obviously, the previous comments lead me to believe that people just don't care about safety and PERFORMANCE.
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