RECRUITING CAR

Short List
TitleRECRUITING CAR
BrandVOLVO
Product/ServiceVOLVO S90
Category B07. Use of Events & Stunts
Entrant FAMOUSGREY BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
Idea Creation FAMOUSGREY BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
PR FAMOUS RELATIONS Brussels, BELGIUM
Production FAMOUSGREY BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
Credits
Name Company Position
Peter Ampe FamousGrey Executive Creative Director
Jonathan Detavernier FamousGrey CXD
Tom Berth FamousGrey Creative
Geert De Rocker FamousGrey Creative
Maarten Breda FamousGrey Experience Director
Maarten Van Daele FamousGrey Strategist
Vincent Vandam FamousGrey Project Leader
Kris Vanderhulst FamousGrey Brand Leader
Carola Michiels FamousGrey Business Director
Sophie Engels Famous Relations PR Manager
Liedewij Verbiest Famous Relations PR Manager
Joanna Ryckaert FamousGrey Copywriter
Jonathan Lichtfeld FamousGrey Designer
Arno Van Biesen FamousGrey Developer
Jérémy Dillenbourg FamousGrey Developer
Gwen Vanhee nocomputer Developer
Wim Vanhenden nocomputer Developer
Bart De Bock FamousGrey Digital Producer
Marie Delrue FamousGrey Digital Producer
Bart Segers FamousGrey Operations Director
Emily Rammant FamousGrey Productions Production Director
Loes Fierens FamousGrey Productions RTV Producer
Marlies Neudt FamousGrey Productions RTV Producer
Frederik Zaman / Producer
Khaël Touag / Director
Piet Devaert / DOP
Stan Maertens / AD & Decor
Eli Sundermann FamousGrey Productions Sound Engineer
Sven Vanhee FamousGrey Productions Editing & Grading
Jelle Stroo FamousGrey Productions Editing & Grading

Why is this work relevant for PR?

During the 2018 Brussels Motorshow we created an innovative brand experience that we wanted the whole country to know about. As one of the only car brands to still produce cars in the country, our story angle focused not on new models, but employment. The ‘Recruiting Car’ got all the attention from journalists during the Motorshow. 70% of all the news coverage was dedicated to Volvo. The campaign reached 1 out of 2 Belgians and didn’t just attract applicants, but also increased the number of price demands from car enthusiasts, and boosted sales (+25% year on year growth!).

Background

At this year’s Motorshow, Volvo set out very ambitious sales objectives, and, with a smaller media budget than its German competitors, had to find a way to cut through the clutter of car adverts to get the attention. Volvo asked us to help them recruit highly skilled car technicians during the 2018 Motorshow, the biggest car event in the country. The campaign had to create stopping power and put the spotlight on Volvo. Objectives ? • To get Volvo on the radar of trained and highly skilled car technicians during the Brussels Motorshow • To boost Volvo’s image as an innovative brand • To cut through the clutter of car adverts during the Motorshow and get earned media attention • To boost sales during the Motorshow

Describe the creative idea

"To make Volvo’s hiring process as innovative as our cars.” was the heart of our creative brief and we took it to the letter. By applying Artificial Intelligence to the car’s software and safety systems, we turned Volvo’s flagship luxury sedan into a car that is able to recruit its own technicians. It was named ‘The Recruiting Car’. We engineered software that enables the car to complete intake interviews tapping in to the vehicle’s speech- and face recognition features. By doing this, we completely changed the conversation from new car models to employment.

Describe the strategy

After a qualitative research stage, we understood that being outspokenly innovative is important to appeal to recently graduated car technicians. But audience data revealed that Volvo was performing subpar on this brand image metric. A traditional HR advert wasn’t going to cut it this time; we needed to design an innovative experience potent enough to change the brand’s image, and appeal to the highly-wanted technicians. We decided to start from the start and redesigned the hiring process from step one. Knowing that Volvo Cars are at the leading edge of innovation in the car world, we set ourselves a mission; to make the hiring process as innovative as our cars.

Describe the execution

Implementation The idea required a significant amount of real-time processing power. We used the pedestrian camera to identify the candidates. And via an integrated voice-enabled AI bot and text-to-speech software built into the Volvo's entertainment interface, we managed to convey a ‘human-like’ conversation with the candidates. Placement We installed the Recruiting Car (HR90) on the Motorshow in Brussels – Belgium’s biggest car event of the year. The Recruiting Car is now being used at dealerships to recruit technicians all around the country. Scale The campaign was announced on social media and through PR. During the launch, journalists came flocking to the Volvo stand, and Volvo’s innovative showpiece was mentioned in all the 7 o’clock news shows covering the Motorshow, reaching 6M people (57% of the population)

List the results

• The recruiting car became the star of the Motorshow and 80% of the national news coverage was dedicated to Volvo • We got national coverage from 7 national television stations, 2 radio news shows and 16 news titles (newspaper, magazine and blogs), resulting in a daily reach of 6.446.211 people – half of the Belgian population; value of earned media €600K • The Recruiting Car turned Volvo into a hot employer for applicants again The number of job applications for technician positions increased by 250% in the weeks after the Motorshow.. • Thanks to our campaign the number of price demands grew 300% compared to last year and helped us overtake our sales targets by 25%! • Thanks to the success of our campaign and the word-of-mouth it generated, Volvo decided to send the car to dealerships all around the country to recruit technicians and Volvo salesmen.