VOLVO | INTERCEPTION (The Greatest Interception Ever) | 2015

The Day Volvo Took Over Every Rival's Commercial Break / Volvo "INTERCEPTION"

Hijacking the Super Bowl without paying the $4.5 million entry fee. The moment rivals poured $60 million into their own ad slots, Volvo was trending worldwide on Twitter. This is the Cannes Grand Prix winner.

The problem

Volvo's brand awareness in America had stalled. With the next-generation XC90 launch coming up, it was a make-or-break moment. A 30-second Super Bowl slot cost $4.5 million. While six companies including Mercedes, Lexus, and Nissan spent a combined $60 million on airtime, Volvo didn't buy a single second of it.

The insight

Volvo has always valued putting people first. Instead of buying attention with money, they wanted to give viewers a chance to give something to someone they love. That felt like the truly Volvo way to do things.

The idea

Here's the setup: no matter which carmaker's commercial aired, viewers could tweet #VolvoContest to say who they'd want to give a Volvo to. The winner would receive an XC60. In other words, every time a rival's ad came on, it turned viewers' phones into machines that made them think about Volvo.

What happened

During the broadcast, there were 55,000 tweets, placing Volvo third among car brands in mentions. Volvo was the only brand to trend nationwide in the US without running a single ad. The following month, XC60 sales rose 70%. Grey New York took home the Grand Prix at Cannes.

Afterthought

Turning the 30 seconds your rivals paid a fortune for into entirely your own. There's something wonderfully twisted and beautiful about watching a competitor's commercial while thinking about Volvo the whole time. I love it.

Awards

Cannes Lions Grand Prix 2015

Three more the bear picked for you

Not the car protecting people, but people protecting people — a paint for that / VOLVO "LIFEPAINT"

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VOLVO | LIFEPAINT | 2015

Not the car protecting people, but people protecting people — a paint for that / VOLVO "LIFEPAINT"

All they did was hand out cans of paint, and it brought home two Cannes Grand Prix. This is the story of a reflective spray Volvo made for cyclists in 2015.

You can't see the car, but you know it's a Jeep / JEEP "Snow Covered"

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JEEP | Snow Covered | 1994

You can't see the car, but you know it's a Jeep / JEEP "Snow Covered"

It's 1994, and for 30 seconds something moves through a landscape buried in snow. The vehicle itself never once appears on screen. And yet everyone watching thought, "Ah, that's a Jeep." This is the ad that became the first car commercial ever to win the Grand Prix at Cannes, and even 30 years later, it hasn't lost an ounce of its power.

Striking Back by Re-Educating the Algorithm / DOVE "Real Beauty Redefined for the AI Era"

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DOVE | Real Beauty Redefined for the AI Era | 2025

Striking Back by Re-Educating the Algorithm / DOVE "Real Beauty Redefined for the AI Era"

20 years ago, Dove fought against the idea of "beauty" in advertising. This time, the enemy is AI. The "beautiful women" that generative AI spits out turned out to be the same narrow, mostly white, thin ideal all over again. What Dove did this time wasn't complain—it was re-educate the algorithm.