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.
The problem
The new XC90 came loaded with cutting-edge technology that detects pedestrians and brakes automatically, but by this point every carmaker was touting safety features like that. Volvo decided to look beyond "safety inside the car" to "safety outside the car." In the UK, more than 19,000 cyclists were being involved in accidents every year.
The insight
It started with a story about reindeer herders in Finland who spray reflective paint on their reindeer's antlers to prevent collisions with cars. Not technology to protect the car, but a way to protect the people who might get hit by one. Flipping Volvo's idea of safety from the inside of the car to the outside is the core of this campaign.
The idea
LIFEPAINT is a reflective spray that's invisible when sprayed on fabric during the day, but glows in headlights at night. It washes out and lasts about a week. When they gave away 2,000 cans at six bike shops in London, they sold out within hours, and a week later they'd received orders for 20,000 more cans. They also made "invisible posters" that appeared when sprayed.
What happened
At Cannes Lions 2015, it won the Grand Prix in both the Design and Promo & Activation categories. It generated 130 million impressions with zero media spend. The budget came from dealers, and no advertising money was used at all. However, in 2017, the ASA flagged the ad for being "misleading" because the footage showed different products being used for fabric and for metal, and the ad was banned.
Afterthought
Volvo is the brand that invented the three-point seatbelt in 1959 and released the patent for free. I feel like that same spirit runs through LIFEPAINT. I liked what Nils Leonard said: "We don't want to replace TV ads with cans of paint — you need both." It makes you wonder just how far the job of advertising can stretch.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Grand Prix 2015
