Volvo kicked off a public-service campaign to help educate Twitter’s captive audience during Super Bowl 56 about electric vehicles—all of them, not just Volvo’s—with the help of school kids and a video camera.
The campaign is called “EV as ABC,” as in, “easy as ABC,” and Volvo and Twitter created a branded hashtag-triggered emoji that will appear in tweet containing #EVasABC.
When people like Volvo’s call-to-action tweet, they will receive a randomized instant notification that features one of 26 videos—one for each letter of the alphabet—featuring young kids explaining how EVs operate and the benefits of owning one.
Liking that tweet will bring up another video, and so on, until the user sees all 26.
Some of those videos will also contain easter eggs leading people to a contest page where they can nominate a U.S. teacher of grades four through eight who is creating a brighter, more sustainable future for the next generation and explain why they should win a trip to the automaker’s headquarters in Sweden for a Volvo EV experience.
Volvo said entries will be judged on adherence to the contest theme, persuasiveness, originality and creativity, and some aspects of the contest will appear on other social platforms.
The winner will be revealed on Earth Day.
Twitter industry director, automotive Guy Schueller said in a statement, “Every day, people come to Twitter to connect to their passions, engage in the conversation and learn about the world around them. The momentum behind the EV conversation is a perfect example of this passion, nearly doubling in the past 12 months, and it shows no signs of slowing down. We’re clearly at a tipping point for consumers, so education is now critical to move the conversation—and the industry—forward, and Twitter is the place to do it.”
Volvo Car USA vice president of marketing Leigh Moynihan added. “The idea behind the ‘EV as ABC’ campaign is to get people to listen and learn about electric vehicles in an engaging and fun way. Terms like regenerative braking and kilowatt-hours sound complicated, but they’re just unfamiliar. We hope that by engaging people on Twitter and getting them familiar with the terminology, they’ll be more inclined to try an EV or plug-in hybrid, because our world really does depend on it.”