TMW Ideas

Funny, you wait ages for a car to do some decent advertising and then one does two at once. And one doesn't even manage one.

Volvo has two interesting sites on the go at the moment. You might have seen the Volvo C60 “Love it or hate it” ads. Granted, not 100% original, you may have heard the line before. But it is unusual for a car to do it on a new launch, and it’s certainly unusual to embrace it with such gusto.

Click through to volvocars.co.uk/freewill and you will find a very rich and rewarding site. Highlights -
- Some actually quite entertaining games (the one where you pelt the car with rotten tomatoes like in a funfair is great, especially at the end “Congratulations! You really hate the C60!”)
- A great spec builder that combines product info with fun graphics and an interesting way to put the car together
- The chance to make your own tattoo.

A very engaging and fun site, that takes the proposition to heart. Brilliant. AND the above the line stuff deliberately drives people to the website. AND the site is an extension of volvocars.co.uk, so I don't need to remember some stupid “www.loveitothateit.com” or some rubbish. Mind you, that might because a certain tub of brown goo got there first.

In addition to this, Volvo is again running their Pirates of the Caribbean treasure hunt promotion. The whole Pirates thing is a great example of making a film tie-up work for you - they even renamed the yacht they sponsor “The Black Pearl” and branded it with the Pirates imagery.

The idea here is that you go online to follow clues to find a treasure chest buried at sea. At each stage you are given coordinates to get to the next. When you get to stage five, you need to bring your code into a Volvo dealership to get the next clue. Genius - great prize, great promotion, and a drive into the showroom. The only thing I'd say is that they could maybe have made the treasure hunt a bit more embedded in the internet - Google Earth, fake sites, message boards, etc. But, nonetheless, look at the results when you Google “Volvo Treasure Hunt” - ALL the top results, BOTH premium sites AND the paid for search, all covered off. That, me hearties, is proper digital marketing. Shiver me timbers.

Anyway, that's the good. You may have seen the new Honda ad, introducing the concept of “Hondamentalism”. Nice idea, nice use of a product truth. But oh my, the website is a (excuse the pun) car crash.

Certainly it looks nice, but there is nothing to it. Get on there, take the Hondamentalism challenge, and the first game is a version of the old cup and pea trick. You proceed through a series of increasingly banal questions, before getting your “Hondamentalism” rating. This bit is quite nice, and there's a nice cloudlike floaty interface to allow you to check other people's level of Hondamentalism. It ticks the looks nice, interactive, User Generated Content, stick the ad on the site boxes, but it is kind of an exercise in digital box ticking. Shame.