Volvo moves back to Jersey - was the O.C. not the place to be?

By Peter Mooney, Special to the Los Angeles Times

As I snoop around the automotive world looking for interesting advertising stories, I’m naturally drawn to the Volvo brand.  I've purchased three new Volvos in a row.  My Mother's pure Swedish. She’s never let me down. I figured Volvo wouldn’t either. Then I read Volvo is moving from Irvine to New Jersey. Why?

The idea in 2001 was to move Volvo headquarters from New Jersey to Southern California.  For the best in car advertising this is and was the place to be.  Lexus, Acura, Infiniti, Nissan and Honda ads have been hand crafted in Los Angeles since these fine nameplates first arrived on our shores.

But in 2008 Volvo has officially given up on us and they’re moving back East.  I believe it’s because nobody told them that Los Angeles and Orange County, where they chose to make their home and the home of their ad agency, are much farther away from each other on the creative map than they appear to be on the map you got from Auto Club.  In fact, if you saw the creative map, you wouldn’t even think they were in the same country.

So, as Maxwell Smart used to say, “They missed it by that much.”  They went all-Irvine in the county of my youth named after it’s once endless citrus orchards now mowed down and covered with cold and personality free office buildings and matching suburbs galore.  (I live in Orange County again 25 years later.  My, what a difference!)

Yesterday I was telling somebody at Volvo, it’s like you were this family who always wanted to stay at the beach. The family drives thousands of miles to fulfill their dream and they drive to California.  But then they pick a place to stay one mile from the beach.

Now, Volvo announces they’re moving from Irvine to New Jersey as if it was a brand new idea that just occurred to them in an executive brainstorming session.  They state “The relocation will make North American operations more efficient by bringing everyone together in one location, as well as bringing everyone three time zones closer to the Swedish headquarters,”

Didn’t all of those conditions exist before they moved from New Jersey to here?  Have the time zones experienced some major shifting while I must have been thinking about something else? Has Sweden moved and I’ve just been too cheap to buy a new map of the world?

I can’t help but wonder if things would have gone differently had anybody explained to them that you couldn’t expect to get the same kind of creative advertising in Orange County as you would get in Los Angeles.  I do not know why.  For some reason no one can fully explain, the second you cross the border going due south from L.A, something in your creative soul simply refuses to go with you.

Comments

[DaveT]

Perhaps Volvo is confused. There is Orange, and East Orange New Jersey. And their is Orange County, CA. The Swedes may not realize the difference. Well, they will be giving up the sun and fun of SoCal for the fun and stun of Soprano land. Perhaps life there will be more interesting after all. And the smell of Newark beats Irvine any day.

[dtr]

Maybe Volvo was confused about about what OC's strengths are. Advertising is LA's. But car design is OC's.

[wes keebler]

Hey Peter, How are you?
I think I know the problem with doing great automobile advertising in OC. Like you said- It's the sameness of everything. The homes. The office buildings. The malls. Hell, even the landscaping. Everything is too planned. A little too perfect. A little too comfortable. So when a car company moves there, the above happens. And because their ad agency is also there, maybe even in the same building, it breeds safeness. You know, the Navajo White of ads. I went to school and worked in OC for years. The only way I avoided being catatonic was to live in Laguna Beach. A haven of individuality. Quirky, beautiful, eclectic.
Wes Keebler

[Peter Mooney]

Wes,

thank you for your comment and thank you again for editing out what you actually did while living in Laguna which no doubt did make you forget you were in Orange County. I just wanted you to be mindful of my large undercover cop audience.

Peter