Nov. 13, 2013. A date often overlooked in advertising history.
Which is a complete shame, because that's the day we were blessed with one of the greatest ads of all time.
"Epic Split" from Volvo Trucks featured Jean-Claude Van Damme—an action star long past his prime—doing the splits between two huge trucks. Impressive, sure, but what really put it over the top was the music choice: Enya's "Only Time."
It was gloriously dumb, and you could. Not. Look away. Since that day, it's been viewed more than 96 million times on YouTube, with people continuing to comment about how they never get tired of it.
Volvo Trucks and agency Forsman & Bodenfors followed up their monster hit (which won the Film Grand Prix at 2014's Cannes Lions) with a few great pieces, including the top winner at Adweek's 2017 Arc Awards.
But then, the ads took a turn toward the...boring. Or more generously, I suppose you could say "practical." Do massive viral hits sell hugely costly commercial trucks? At the time of "Epic Split," Volvo Trucks' marketing chief told me the answer was a resounding "yes," but maybe something changed?
Who can say where the road goes? Where the day flows? Only time. Only...time.
Anyway, THEY'RE BACK, Y'ALL. Today, Volvo Trucks returned to form with The Tower, a real-life stack of its four newest trucks, standing nearly 50 feet and weighing 58 tons.
And just in case you doubted whether the top brass was on board, standing atop The Tower is...the company's president.
Welcome back to being bonkers, Volvo Trucks.
David Griner
Creative and Innovation Editor, Adweek
David.Griner@Adweek.com
