Or just devoid of any distinguishing features?
The love/hate or ugly/beautiful positioning for the new Volvo C30 is a bit limp to say the least. Having spent many hours locked in focus groups for new vehicle launches in the past up and down both the UK and across the spectacularly different opinions of Europe, its quite clear that there nothing unique about this car. It looks like a slightly smaller Volvo so you’d assume it’s reliable, spacious, safe – but presumably safe doesn’t equal sexy so safe is off. The only exterior feature I can see is the rear lights (and they get a lot of footage in the site vids), which look like two downward smiling mouths in emoticon language so not exactly a happy car. The interior doesn’t get much viewing in the ads or the website. Which, it has to be said is quite dull and repetitive, takes a long time to find anything and isn’t exactly loaded with pointers so you know what you’re going to get.
My only thought is that one or two or all folks rejected the stimulus propositions and maybe Sven or Klaus popped up with “it’s the kind of car that you love or hate.” At which point some lightbulb switched and a re-hash of the marmite campaign was born (which was based on actual consumer opinion too but in that case people could be bothered to have an opinion).
And lastly, nice to see advertising following a direct mail and outdoor technique that was very popular in the late 90’s – the lenticular device. You can see their homage in the ad below.
