YOU CAN’T HELP having been moved when Volvo’s ad featuring the music of Enya and the skills of Jean Claude Van Damme was released in November.
It was a thing of beauty which combined elegance, grace and the most epic of splits to demonstrate the power of Volvo Trucks, and has now been viewed almost 70 million times.
Well, as it turns out, it was a worthwhile move, not just in terms of creating something beautiful, but also in terms of what it has done for Volvo.
According to Swedish news source The Local, the ads cost between $3 million and $4.7 million to produce, but have raked in $170 million in revenue.
Per Nilsson, head of media relations for Volvo Trucks told Swedish financial newspaper Dagens Industri:
If we look at the total effect, our media value is clearly bigger than the 1.1 billion kronor we pulled in. We haven’t counted the copies on YouTube, for example.
And by copies, they mean parodies, of which there are many.
Like Channing Tatum’s version from the set of 22 Jump Street:
Or this one, which features a CGI Chuck Norris:
If all this means more JCVD and more Enya then we are all for it!
