Volvo's website -watch the commercials yay

I love the little girl's story: "and it has legs .. but it's head is so tiny.. "

"WHO WOULD YOU" VOLVO "LITTLE GIRL" ggl search

-What a cute commercial, this one is. Cute little girl, sweet and handsome father, with a comfortable smile on his face. He is feeling good about his daughter being protected by his choice of vehicles. Good work Volvo! Convincing soft commercial. It makes a person "feel" good.

« Meet Rosie, scourge of the new advertising [--This Blog Sits at the Intersection of Anthropology and Economics -- I remember landing on this site early ago, maybe post re drive thru drinks?]
Now to the good news: a Volvo ad called "Rosie" that features a little girl chattering away as her Dad buckles her into the back seat of the family car.
This is advertising as we used to make it. Someone sat down and thought about the value proposition of any car from a father's point of view (something like "safe passage"), the standard feature of the Volvo value proposition ("really safe passage"), and then looked for a way to propose this proposition in a manner that is interesting and powerful.
Sweet Jerusalem, they hit this one so far out of the park, it's still traveling. Rosie, a little girl of about 5, is talking, talking, and talking (as above, complete with visual aid). We can't tell what she is saying. She could be reporting a story, she could be making one up. Dad hesitates to close the door for fear of interrupting yes , but it's clear to us (and to him) that there is no interrupting this great spill of detail, enthusiasm and fluting talk. aw yes- enthusiasm. and fluting.
One of the things I love about the ad is that "Dad" is played with restraint. yes yes me too. It would have been easy to have him "mug" his reaction or signal how achingly sweet this moment is. yep exactly, I love that he is not sentimental adoring. he is going about the business of getting her in the car and on way. But, no, that would have been patronizing. Rosie is plenty because Rosie is everything. We know exactly what is going on here. No additional indexing, no additional "viewing instructions" are necessary. What we get from Dad, at the end of the spot, is the littlest smile as he drives away. Rosie, of course, is still talking.
Rosie is safety made vivid, actual, human and urgent. It is when we see a little girl telling a story from her Dad's point of view that see how much safety matters.
There are several ways to express the value augmentation, the meaning manufacture, taking place here. Here's one: Rosie's story > (augments)> Rosie's charm > Rosie's vulnerability > Dad's responsibility and solicitude > Volvo's safety. ok not bad. Actually, we could parse it a couple of ways. And this too is the measure of a great ad. It has a kind of semiotic redundancy built into it. We can see it several ways but we always up back in the same place.
...If advertising (and marketing and anthropology) learned anything in the 1990s... Find the value propositions and tell its story with all the creative power and cultural knowledge the agency has at its disposal.