Volvo = Safety... maybe not anymore

According to the 1976 marketing classic, "Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind," positioning any brand starts with the consumer. In order to position your brand, you need to start with what consumers already think about your brand. In today's overstimulated, multitasking society, changing what a prospective consumer thinks about your brand is nearly impossible.

A basic principle in the book is that positioning is not about creating something new and different, but rather it is about manipulating what's already in the mind of the consumer or "to retie the connections that already exist."

Because advertising and communication messages bombard every element of our lives, keeping the message as simple and clearly connected to your brand is critical if you want anyone to remember it. While many examples in this book are so outdated that they feel nearly antiquated, the basic principles of positioning are definitely still relevant and vital in today's marketplace where so many products and brands cycle in and out so quickly.

This being said, few brands have such a strong and clear cut positioning as Volvo. Many other automobile makers wish they had the position Volvo has with safety. Ask someone what kind of car to buy for safety, and the response will almost definitely be Volvo. According to a recent advertising age article, Volvo executives want to also appeal to the right brain and the emotional aspect of car buying.

These executives feel that the focus on safety is too left brain and not appealing enough. I agree that safety alone may not be enough to get a consumer to purchase a car, but trying to reposition themselves will be nearly impossible. While Volvo's sales have been declining since 2004, repositioning may not have the desired effect. Volvo could end up losing its position altogether, which would be far worse than just being known as safe. Think about car brands with no distinct position like GM or Ford... not exactly the situation a car manufacturer wants to end up in.

Ironically enough, in November of last year, Darryl Siry, author of Marketing 2.0, commented that Volvo's "Who would you give a Volvo to?" campaign was one of the few good automobile advertisements. I didn't really "get" what that campaign was trying to achieve, but I just assumed it was because I wasn't the target audience.

Volvo has since scrapped that campaign and is currently in the process of selecting a new ad agency to launch a global campaign focusing on the sexiness of newer car models. I think that no matter which agency wins this account, advertisers should take advantage of the safety position (with a campaign like safety never looked so sexy).

Just to bring this all full circle, the forward of "Positioning" mentions how the safety position brought Volvo from a small Swedish company to one of the world's most powerful automobile brands.