When Volvo wanted to showcase the contemporary design and impressive features of the C40 electric crossover, we knew we needed to cut through the noise with a masterpiece: enter Auto Symphony No. 2. With this ad primarily being teed up for YouTube and digital media channels we sought out to partner with Chloe Flower, a Creator who impresses our audiences on these channels regularly and is known as an accomplished composer, writer, producer, and classical pianist.
Our goals for the ad campaign were brand health lift for awareness as the primary KPI and video metrics (i.e., VTR) as the secondary KPI.
As a build upon the 2022 collab of Volvo and Andrew Huang: the Sounds of the Volvo XC60 - wherein music producers Andrew Huang and Dresage made a beat entirely made up of sounds from the vehicle - our 2023 Creator collab needed to manifest its own way to put Volvo in the spotlight.
We collaborated with our composer Chloe Flower to understand her writing process and developed a treatment that would break through feeds and delay those clicks to “skip.” For “Auto Symphony No. 2,” we built a concept around how the Volvo C40 is engineered like a song is composed. With intuitive artistry and fine attention to detail.
What unites Chloe’s Piano and the Volvo - is how both instruments are functional works of art with exquisite craftsmanship, meant to be handled with delicate and curious intent.
Our production aimed to allow for the freedom of movement with our camera to capture the beauty of the grand piano and Chloe’s delicate playing in contrast with Chloe’s interactions with the vehicle. Using match cuts, split screens, and other dynamic camera movements, we drew parallels between piano and car sounds to create an almost dueling performance of sight and sound.
For our final video, we captured the Volvo C40 in two ways: the first with sweeping beauty shots that we were able to match cut back to Chloe’s performance on the piano. The second, capturing more intimate shots of the car with tight shots of Chloe’s hands interacting with the Volvo C40.
We were able to incorporate a see/hear technique, isolating specific features of the car to better understand where the sounds were coming from, and elsewhere solidifying the relationship between these two well-crafted instrumental machines.
The output of our production was indeed an ad that delivered. The initial launch of assets garnered 3.4M views across all cuts, with view-through rates (VTR) as high as 44% and a 13% lift in consideration (according to a Google brand lift study). Furthermore, we received glowing remarks and comments from our fans:
@garybeckler9713: What beautiful music by Chloe! Makes me want to buy the car. very well done
@foxbearchillinbytheriver: This song is so beautiful!
@mc9fan: SO DOPE! 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
@N.B.USA.: The best ad I’ve ever seen in decades. Perfection ❤️
@alroyp10: Can’t stop watching this! Is this on Apple Music??? 😫😫
