With the start of the Volvo Ocean Race 2008-2009, Volvo gives us a seemingly impossible task: get the special edition cars in front of people who are not exclusively interested in sailing sports, yet still show the race and utilize its branding values.
Creative
Boats sail in water, while cars drive on land. How do we establish a plausible connection between the two? We tell the story of a life rescue crew, featuring the cars to get car shoppers interested in the Ocean Race. We feature the Ocean Race to get sailing fans interested in the cars.
The start of the Volvo Ocean Race was the start of the campaign. The huge amount of PR coverage around the race gives the campaign an immediate advantage.
On the Volvo Cars website the visitor is invited to start the interactive adventure RUSH, where they meet four members of a life rescue crew, rushing out to assist an Ocean Race boat at sea. They each have four minutes to reach the lifeboat, driving in their Volvo Ocean Race Editions, when things go wrong and the user needs to help them out.
The campaign for this interactive adventure includes a movie-like trailer, seeded into filming, gaming and sailing communities. Dealerships across the world and the Volvo showrooms in the Ocean Race harbors are provided with poster material and a stand-alone DVD version of the adventure to be played next to the cars. This same story, a rescue crew rushing out to assist an Ocean Race boat, is consistently told in other media such as TV, POS and print.
