Tag Archives: sweden

The Mystery of Selling Cars

Leave a reply

Back in 2004, thirty two people in the town of Dalaro, Sweden (population 1015) bought a new Volvo S40. On the exact same day. What caused the entire town to buy the same car, separately, on the same day? Viral marketing, of course.

The “Mystery of Dalaro” was directed by Spike Jonze for Volvo’s European ad agency. It “documents” the phenomenon of coincidental consumption in a cute way. I especially like the Carl Jung reference. Don’t know if it ended up selling more than 32 cars though.

Via the book OBD: Obsessive Branding Disorder

Volvo vinner i Längden!

3 Replies

volvo140_slacks

The strapping young lad above is Sune Larsson from Stockholm, Sweden. According to the 1979 issue of Din Volvobutik:

Sune äger en Volvo 144 av – 72 Ã¥rs modell. Den har gÃ¥tt over 74.000 mil och har gjort Sune till vinnare i vÃ¥r tävling om vilken Volvo 140 som rullat längst.

Anyone care to translate? I assume he drove over 74,000 miles in 7 years? Was that a feat of derring-do in the late 70s? Ten thousand miles a year is an average commute these days. Regardless, that’s one proud Swede.

About: I found a trove of scanned Volvo brochures and miscellany on a server from Sweden a while back and will be trickling the best images out over time. They’re collected under the category “Marketing a Tank“.