Volvo Cars is a renowned automotive manufacturer founded in 1927, known for its premium cars with emphasis on safety, human-centric innovation, and Scandinavian design.

Volvo Cars

Industry Automobile

Geography Global

Impact >500,000 cars sold for the first time

Volvo partnered with Lynxeye to unlock a new market opportunity. As a result, Volvo was strengthened as a premium brand globally and set multiple sales records.

Challenge

Being a challenger brand with relatively small volumes globally, Volvo had to get into the premium price tier in order to stay profitable in the investment-intense automotive industry. The current equity about safety was not enough to compete effectively with premium brands such as Audi, Mercedes and BMW – brands which are also respected for safety.

Our mission was to make Volvo a premium brand in all the markets where it was competing.

Response

When digging deep into the consumer landscape both quantitatively and qualitatively, Lynxeye revealed a premium consumer segment that had a somewhat different view than traditional premium consumers. This segment also proved to be big enough for Volvo’s business objectives and growth plans.

Lynxeye got to know these consumers in all the key markets of the US, Europe and Asia, and unlocked a special insight that was built on Volvo’s heritage as well as the weaknesses of competitors and the future needs of consumers.

This insight broadened the safety aspect – to always ‘start with people’ when designing cars. While other car brands were about technology, for technology’s sake, Volvo had always been about human beings. It was time to become driver- and human-centric.

Deliverables

  • Consumer insight and segmentation
  • Global brand strategy
  • Full organization implementation support
Lynxeye has that clever ability to identify the unique potential in a brand and create a customer awareness way beyond their client’s expectations, time after time.
Peter HorburyExecutive Vice President Geely Design

Record sales

Volvo XC90 SUV limited “First edition” sold out globally in 47 hours in June 2014.

Historic milestones

In 2015, Volvo sold more than 500,000 cars for the first time in the company’s history.