Volvo restructures marketing budget to focus on digital

Volvo has restructured its marketing budget to focus more on natural search and social media in a bid to reinforce its ‘Life is better lived together’ brand positioning.

The Swedish car brand has appointed Mindshare to manage its search optimisation, social media and online PR accounts full-time, having previously worked with the media agency on a project-by-project basis, including its Volvo C30 campaign.

Last year Volvo spent £19.75m on advertising, excluding paid search. Of this, internet accounted for just 3%, or £695,500.

Anita Fox, Volvo UK’s head of marketing communications, said that while the company has revised downwards its overall marketing spend for the year, channels such as natural search and social media have seen their budgets increased.

“While we’ve always focused on SEO, as we revise budgets we’re putting more focus on the digital area, including natural search and social media,” she said.

Fox said the success of last year’s Creative 30 campaign – in which it partnered with The Independent, Vice and Yahoo to look for creative stars of the future and engage with a younger audience – had convinced Volvo of the effectiveness of an integrated, social-media focused marketing approach.

“This is an area that’s growing rapidly. You can’t get the same reach for the same budgets now as you would this time last year,” she said. “This year we’re taking what we’ve learned from the C30 campaign and going much wider.”

Volvo’s focus on social media reflects the car brand’s new strapline ‘Life is better lived together’, which it unveiled in February as it moved away from its traditional safety-based brand messaging.

This story first appeared on newmediaage.co.uk