The Best Thing About Grand Prix Winning #VolvoTrucks

...for me is how true the whole idea stays to to the product. Forsman & Bodenfors (the creative masterminds behind it) happen to also be an agency for Mondelez/Marabou in Sweden and I had the pleasure of meeting the Volvo Trucks' team on a recent visit to get some insight into the thinking behind this great piece of work.

On the final night of the #CannesLions the film jourey awarded a Grand Prix to the infamous Volvo Trucks 'Epic Split' featuring Jean Claude Van Damme (capping off a week in which it won 20 awards in total), so it seems fair game to discuss what makes it the absolute best of all of the videos created last year. Of course a lot of creativity is very subjective and I'm really in no position to cast judgement - is it the filming/staging that makes it great? is it the soundtrack? is it the celebrity? is it just the idea? For me though its unquestionable strength is that it's no way near as gimmicky as you might like to think.

One question that came up is why a company that sells trucks (which let's be honest are bought by a pretty niche group of people) would even want/need their video to be seen by 73 million people in the first place. Well, it is a pretty good way of guarenteeing that everyone who COULD buy your truck has seen it, and it doesn't hurt that all their friends & family have too... when was the last time any of those guys spent time being interested in their job before this? It also shakes up an industry with very little new news (brands launch a new truck every decade or so) and where the marketing techniques are very established and focus on direct mail & events.

The profound thing that came from chatting to the team is how this seemingly frivelous stunt is built on a deep product insight that only came from spending a lot of time with the Volvo engineers. Sure you might watch this in wonder & excitement at how cool Van Damme is, but if you work in the truck industry you watch it with wonder & excitement that two trucks can reverse so perfectly together (and THAT is the magic of Volvo's dynamic steering). A great piece of 'viral' creative is only truly great if it ladders back to your brand and communicates what it needs to, and this piece really did.

It's not a one off either - although it's the only one to go truly global the team have been consistently working away on these Live Test ideas for over a year. Their initial balerina stunt (again showing precision and control) got an impressive 9.7 million views, whilst 6 million people saw that the steering was so light even a hamster could operate it. Emergency breaks, ground clearance, the strength of the tow bar... they've created an incredibly watchable piece of content for each and yet still landed a really powerful product truth.

So the creativity of the final film might be subjective and debatable (a jaded marketeer was moaning earlier in the week that Cannes actually celebrates the most average pieces of work that all the judges quite like, leaving controversial pieces behind) but it's hard not to admire how true they stayed to the brand throughout, whilst still doing something beautiful, crazy and creative. We could all come up with a wild stunt to make headlines and get views, but it takes real creativity to invent one which proves your brand's message, especially when that brand is a lorry.

Does all the content your brand produces (whether headline videos or daily Facebook updates) manage to achieve that?