Collaboration sees the Swedish partners embark on ‘A New Beginning’
Volvo Cars and artist & producer Avicii Feeling Good about the future
Volvo Cars and Swedish artist and producer Avicii announce a creative cooperation to celebrate their Swedish roots with a new recording and music video, due for global release on May 8th. The collaboration will form the basis for a global brand campaign entitled ‘A New Beginning’.
The Stockholm-born producer & artist Avicii, 26, has made a huge impact in the world of music in recent years, and is renowned for being one of the world’s top DJs, remixers and record producers. With a shared Swedish heritage, Volvo Cars and Avicii are now both entering a new phase in their existence.
“The Volvo Cars brand is on the ascendant, just as Avicii is, with a growing global audience. We thought there would be no better way to celebrate our heritage and passion for life than to work together to produce something special that reflects who we are and what matters to us,” said Alain Visser, Senior Vice President Sales, Marketing & Customer Service at Volvo Car Group.
The song chosen for the collaboration, Feeling Good, a classic track recorded by Nina Simone 50 years ago, has been given new life with Avicii’s production. He has added new vocals, infectious beats and the catchy melodic treatment that has thrilled millions of jubilant fans at festivals and clubs around the world.
“I've loved the song for a long time. It's one of the best songs ever written. It's just timeless to me. I've been a big fan of Nina Simone, Etta James and that kind of sound for a very long time. So when I found out that was the song that Volvo Cars wanted in the music video I was really excited and happy to do something with it. I wanted to create something new, and at the same time stay true to the original,” said Avicii.
The beautifully shot video for Feeling Good was filmed in Stockholm and locations personal to Avicii such as Osterlen in Sweden, where he and his family spent their summer vacations. Avicii and his team had full creative sign off on the final video and created and approved the storyline together with Volvo.
“It was important to me that if we did something together it would be new and unique, that it was a longer term global cooperation from both sides and that it would completely align with our brands in both a credible and creative way. Everything you see in the video is true to the Avicii brand. Volvo Cars’ lead tagline is ‘A New Beginning’ and that is a theme we share with Volvo,” said Ash Pournouri, founder of At Night Management, whose vision and creative guidance brought Avicii to worldwide acclaim.
The Volvo Cars brand has earned a well-deserved reputation for safety, environmental care and quality since the company was founded in 1927. In recent years the company has begun an important brand transformation process building on these important values. The result is a fresh look at what a luxury car maker can offer its customers: a uniquely tailored car experience that actively enhances life as well as protecting it.
“As we embark on the most exciting product launch plan in the history of our company, we thought this is the perfect moment to launch a brand campaign focussing on the essence and uniqueness of the brand. This initiative forms part of our new Volvo Way marketing strategy which we announced recently. This is why the campaign is called ‘A New Beginning’. It’s about celebrating who we are and who we aspire to be. It’s about people making the most of their lives,” added Alain Visser.
The new campaign will be closely followed by focused PR and marketing campaign around the Volvo XC90.
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Volvo Car Group in 2014
For the 2014 financial year, Volvo Car Group recorded an operating profit of 2,252 MSEK (1,919 MSEK in 2013). Revenue over the period amounted to 129,959 MSEK (122,245 MSEK). For the full year 2014, global sales reached a record 465,866 cars, an increase of 8.9 per cent versus 2013. The record sales and operating profit cleared the way for Volvo Car Group to continue investing in its global transformation plan.
About Volvo Car Group
Volvo has been in operation since 1927. Today, Volvo Cars is one of the most well-known and respected car brands in the world with sales of 465,866 in 2014 in about 100 countries. Volvo Cars has been under the ownership of the Zhejiang Geely Holding (Geely Holding) of China since 2010. It formed part of the Swedish Volvo Group until 1999, when the company was bought by Ford Motor Company of the US. In 2010, Volvo Cars was acquired by Geely Holding.
As of December 2014, Volvo Cars had over 26,000 employees worldwide. Volvo Cars head office, product development, marketing and administration functions are mainly located in Gothenburg, Sweden. Volvo Cars head office for China is located in Shanghai. The company’s main car production plants are located in Gothenburg (Sweden), Ghent (Belgium) and Chengdu (China), while engines are manufactured in Skövde (Sweden) and Zhangjiakou (China) and body components in Olofström (Sweden).
About Avicii
In 2011, Avicii reached critical mass with the global success of “Le7els,” which became a No. 1 dance hit in the U.S. and the U.K. and sold four million tracks worldwide. It topped the charts in six other territories, went top 10 in many more, and garnered Bergling his second Grammy nomination. Other hits, including “Silhouettes” and “I Could Be the One” (featuring Nicky Romero) followed and 2012 also brought a much-publicized remix of Madonna’s “Girl Gone Wild.” In 2013, Avicii won his first American Music Award (for Favorite Electronic Dance Music Artist) and his first MTV Europe Music Award (EMA) (for Best Electronic Artist).
In 2014 Avicii cemented his place in the firmament of superstar recording artist/DJ’s with the success of his genre-defying debut album, True, on PRMD Records. The album not only satisfied the 25-year-old Swede’s restless creative urge to push musical boundaries, it also upped the ante on what dance music could be by blending the earthy sounds of folk, country, and bluegrass with soaring pop melodies, funky disco jams, and driving house beats. True spawned the 4x-platinum guitar-laden stomper “Wake Me Up,” which hit No. 1 in 81 countries and became the most streamed song of all time on Spotify (over 300 million plays) and the No. 1 most Shazamed song worldwide, while racking up 2.6 billion international streams and 600 million combined YouTube views. Upon True’s release, The New York Times heralded Avicii as “an artist carrying today — and tomorrow — on his shoulders.”
Last year he was named World’s Best Electronic Dance Artist at the World Music Awards, and “Wake Me Up” won Top Dance/Electronic song at the Billboard Music Awards and EDM Song of the Year at the iHeartRadio Music Awards. He also enjoyed chart success with True’s subsequent singles “Hey Brother” and “Addicted To You.”
