task

Volvo is a family brand that tells family stories rooted in luxury and intimacy. Having conveyed this identity to the European market with great success, a fresh approach was vital to the success of the American launch of the XC90. A new market meant a new culture, and a new culture meant cut-and-paste was not an option.

Volvo knew what they wanted to do: elicit an emotional connection through honest human stories. But they needed a cultural translator who knew the brand as if it were their own; someone they could trust to honor the brand’s longtime legacy while transcending the traditional.

process

DOMO Creative Director André Stringer carefully threaded Volvo’s brand values from idea to script to screen in “Wedding,” deftly weaving the product story seamlessly with the human story. The question was simple: How do we showcase genuine human emotion in this context?

For starters, give it a real human voice. 

We didn’t want an actor smiling vacantly in the driver's seat. We wanted to share a person’s intimate, vulnerable moments with an audience that understood the feeling. So we built the script around a monologue based on the hero character’s real-life experience as a father, set in an environment that emanated the comfort and luxury Volvo stands for. This personal narrative concept ultimately informed the creative approach for the subsequent spots in the campaign.

You can’t fake honest storytelling. So don’t.