Car-buyers are turning away from the showroom experience, put off by a high-pressure sales environment. That was a problem for Volvo. The company wanted to get consumers excited about its V40 model. Research showed that when they tried a V40, people loved it. But no showroom visit meant no test drive. Volvo also faced another challenge. The brand is best known for safety and reliability. But modern car buyers were more interested in innovation and design. It had to find a way to get consumers excited about its brand.

To meet these goals, we were tasked with designing a data-led media campaign that would change the conversation around the Volvo brand, get buyers behind the wheel of a V40 for a test drive, and do so in a way that was sympathetic to the existing go-to-market model, based on a close partnership with local Volvo retailers.

For first time ever, we enabled Amazon Prime customers to book a Volvo test drive from their home, with the car delivered to their door at a time which suited them. This idea came after insights revealed that Volvo’s time-pressured audience couldn’t always visit car showrooms. Volvo knew that, once they’d driven it, customers loved the V40. But no trip to the showroom meant no test drive. The brand had to find a way to get past the customers’ disengagement with the traditional sales-model and get them behind the driving seat again. The company knew its customers lived their lives through their phones, in an on-demand bubble. From music, taxis and takeaways to their latest shopping splurge, they expected goods and services to come to them, not the other way around. To stay relevant, Volvo would have to take the test drive to the customer.

To inform campaign strategy, we used our bespoke insight and research tool, DX, to map consumer decision-making and experience. This included social listening, implicit testing, and a series of programmatic split-tests.

The campaign used the insights about audience truth derived from this research. These showed that car buyers no longer wanted to visit showrooms, especially when they were used to buying almost everything else online, at a touch of their fingertips.

That’s why we chose to partner with Amazon Prime. The campaign ran entirely within Amazon’s ecosystem. Media activity targeted Amazon Prime’s young and affluent consumer base, driving them to a custom-designed Volvo hub on the Amazon UK site. Once there, car buyers could not only book online but also have the car delivered to their home.

To generate demand, we decided to place media, pointing to amazon.co.uk/Volvo, across the Amazon Advertising Platform (AAP), Fire Wakescreen and Fire tablet.

The campaign launched on 23 May 2018. To generate traffic, it had two phases: pre-launch and launch. In the pre-launch phase, the agency ran broad-audience programmatic advertising across the AAP, profiling the best-performing segments for use in the launch phase. In the launch phase, the campaign ran bespoke display and video advertising across the AAP, Fire Wakescreen and Fire tablet, driving customers to amazon.co.uk/Volvo.

Our media strategy was 100% supported with Amazon-owned media. Throughout the campaign, we refined its targeting. In the launch phase, all media was targeted to users in or near the participating cities. The user experience on the Volvo hub made booking a test drive as easy as possible. In each city, reps were specially trained to guide the customer through the test drive. Once a slot was booked, a rep would bring the car to the customer and take the customer for a personalised test drive.

The campaign succeeded in changing consumer and press perceptions of Volvo. Of those who took a test drive, 95% reported the experience as “very good”. And 11% said that prior to the drive they would not have considered test-driving a vehicle at a retailer.

Test drive slots were snapped up rapidly, as they become available. Other results included:

65 pieces of PR coverage in national titles, with a combined reach of 394 million.

99% of customers rated the Volvo V40 model as ‘very good’.

12.3% uplift in brand favourability among those exposed to the campaign.

“This campaign not only brought V40 back to the spotlight but also put Volvo on the forefront of the automotive industry, which is something we aim for as a progressive company. It’s initiatives like this one that will make Volvo a leading force in the future of mobility.”

Mike Johnstone, Volvo UK’s Marketing Strategy Director