Would You Buy A Used Car From This Man?

Posted October 03, 2017

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Alan Watts (1915-1973) was a British philosopher, writer and speaker; an exponent of Zen Buddhism and Eastern Philosophy.  

He is hardly the kind of person you would turn to to sell cars.  

But that is exactly what Forsman & Bodenfors, a Swedish advertising agency based in Gothenberg, Sweden, has done.

To promote the Volvo V90 Cross Country, they have taken a recording of an Alan Watts speech "Live Fully Now", recorded in 1959, and married it to a compelling (and extremely well shot and cut) video overlay.

The Watts speech is all about living for today.  It follows a set of professionals as they forgo their professions, pack up their Volvos and head back to the countryside and the focus of their youthful dreams.

It makes for a powerful ad (even if it does run nearly 3 minutes), but this is Sweden.

You may recall (if you are an avid TV commercial watcher or have an odd fixation on Volvos), an ad that Volvo ran last year, The Wedding, which also ran 3 minutes and followed the story of a wedding (and the intersection of a Volvo).

Watch it.

This is powerful video.

Both of them capture you because they follow the two basic rules of video storyteling:  character and arc of story.

If you can use this to sell cars, you can use it to sell ideas. 

Or whatever else you might have in mind.