We needed to create excitement and buzz around a brand with very low awareness in the U.S., and stand out in a competitive category where we were being outspent. Even more challenging, the idea would only work on a large stage, so we chose to do this during the biggest media event of the year, the Super Bowl. Given the nature of the platform, the immediacy with which information is shared, and its secure place as the second screen during the game, Twitter was the perfect place for our campaign to live. We gave consumers a simple task: during any Super Bowl car ad, tweet the name of someone you want to put in a Volvo using #VolvoContest. After completing their submission, consumers were entered to win 1 of 5 brand new Volvo XC60s. The innovative use of Twitter gave us a compelling story to tell in PR, and in the week leading up to the game, we blitzed the media landscape with countless news articles, as well as a program integration on Jimmy Kimmel Live! With earned media carrying us into Super Bowl weekend, our paid digital media dollars could be strategically placed to boost awareness of our campaign and engagement with it. In the end, over 230 million earned media impressions led to a groundswell of support for our campaign, and more than 55,000 #VolvoContest tweets during the Super Bowl telecast.

Awareness came in multiple tactics. Support in digital video would ramp up one week before the Super Bowl. As we moved closer to game day, awareness was boosted with a custom network partnership, creating a heartwarming sketch on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to get viewers ready for our Sunday plans. Leading into Sunday, paid social media support hyper-targeted around competitor activity would drive on-platform Twitter actions and engagements on game day. Throughout Sunday, responses to in-game activity were promoted to keep the campaign active for several hours.

The reponse was astounding. All told, the campaign saw more than 230 million earned media impressions. With more than 55,000 tweets during the 3 hour telecast, #VolvoContest was the most-tweeted automotive hashtag on Super Bowl Sunday. #VolvoContest trended 3 times on Twitter and "Volvo" trended globally. Volvo was mentioned nearly 114,000 times on Twitter, 3rd-most of any automotive brand, all without a Super Bowl ad. Our online video passed 3,400,000 views in a week, and our website saw more than 116,000 visitors in 2 weeks. People were tweeting their children to nominate them, and several joined Twitter just for this campaign. Of the nearly 20,000 unique users who tweeted, more than 10,700 people filled out the nomination form (54% completion), giving us all those unique, wonderful stories to choose from. Most importantly, the XC60 had the highest February sales increase of any car in its segment (70.7% year-over-year).