Volvo ad sniffs out new market

By Stephen Williams
Newsday

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Volvo, a company not known for outrageous advertising, is out to smoke the competition next month with a two-page magazine ad that stinks. Under a scent strip — a strip that usually would blossom into some flowery, Estee Lauder-esque bouquet when opened — Volvo has pasted the pungent aroma of ... well, acrid burnt rubber.

"We've had an image that largely lags behind reality," said Volvo's vice president of marketing, John Maloney. "Safety and fun to drive aren't mutually exclusive concepts, but we decided to add some imagery, to give the reader something he wouldn't expect from Volvo.

"It's a very manly smell," Maloney said. The ad, promoting Volvo's new S40 sporty sedan, was developed as part of a campaign to attract younger buyers, in their 20s and 30s. The ad reads, "The invigorating new fragrance from Volvo."

The advertisement will run in the September issues of Car and Driver, Road and Track, and Motor Trend, Maloney said.

At the magazine rack at a Borders in Farmingdale, N.Y., a young man sniffed the ad in the latest Motor Trend. "It's better than some of the perfumes I've smelled in GQ," he said. "But then, I'm a NASCAR fan."

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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