24 February, 1978
Volvo, the Swedish car company, has fired FGA/Kenyon and Eckhardt from
its pounds 1 million account and is following David Abbott into Abbott
Mead Davies and Vickers.
Abbott had been closely involved with the Volvo account since it moved
to French Gold Abbott in 1975 and has written most of the advertising on
the account.
’We were looking for a certain skill and a certain relationship when we
moved to French Gold,’ said Jim Maxmin, the marketing director at Volvo.
’We are looking for a creative service rather than anything else.’
Volvo moved to Abbott Mead without seeing presentations from other
agencies.
’David Abbott knows our business and he knows the industry,’ Maxmin
said.
’We approached him, he accepted and it was as simple as that.’
FGA’s managing director Barry Wrightson said he was ’sad we haven’t had
more opportunity to show what we can do on the business’.
Volvo told French Gold in December that they were worried about Abbott’s
departure from the agency but agreed to leave the business there for a
while. Since then the agency has produced one ad for Volvo, for the
343.
Abbott’s skills in press copywriting are suited to Volvo. The company
has traditionally advertised almost exclusively in the press, because,
Maxmin says, it is aiming for a specialised audience.
In 1996 AMV won an assignment to handle the pan-European launch of the
S40 and V40 models. That was followed in 1997 by the award of the pounds
60 million global launch of a new model to replace the 9 series, marking
the first time its work will be seen in the US.
Both moves are seen as a huge vote of confidence in AMV as Volvo seeks a
unified global approach for new product launches.
