Let’s acknowledge this right off the bat: this is a silly idea. A “naughty” experiment? From Volvo?? Puh-lease. You’re no Axe.
But, if we remove this ridiculous premise, there’s actually something salvageable from this campaign. We’ve thrown around some “social experiments” ourselves here at Upshot, and they often make for fun bits of trivia after the campaign is through. Normally, these campaigns have a bit of a guerilla element, where users are caught off-guard in the street (as in the VW Fun Theory spots we’ve enjoyed so much).
While the participants in these social experiments often get some legitimate chuckles, they usually don’t get a big ol’ party out of the whole thing. So, Volvo’s got a few things working for them here. First, the participants in the experiment are going to have a good time (and associate that experience with Volvo), even if there was a bit of humor had at their expense. Plus, Volvo is positioning themselves as a sporty lifestyle brand that’s appropriate for the clubbin’ crowd. If they want to run some fun little experiments in the background, so that the brand has some talk-able elements after the party is over, more power to them.
But, someone needed to put together a creative brief here. “Naughtiness” can’t possibly be the big idea, since it doesn’t make any sense for the brand. If they wanted to further associate this car with the club crowd, then they should have run experiments on that theme. Which town made the party last the longest? Which town could find a hidden party fastest? Even the some pieces of the Volvo experiment (such as the admittedly-funny VIP segment at 1:11) would’ve been fine had they not been shoehorned into the “naughty” concept.
So, hopefully we’ll see this tactic again, but matched up with a big idea that works.
