KEEP THE EXCUSE OR LOSE IT
Volvane Motors · Automotive
Challenge
Behaviour change — Upper-middle-class European urbanites aged 35-50 who describe themselves as environmentally conscious and consistently rank sustainability as a top personal value, yet have delayed switching to an electric vehicle despite having the financial means to do so.
Insight
In affluent European social circles, range anxiety has quietly stopped being a genuine logistical concern and become a socially acceptable excuse — the one remaining argument that lets people signal environmental intent while avoiding the commitment of actually changing their behaviour. Saying 'the infrastructure isn't there yet' has become the polite dinner-party equivalent of 'I'm just not ready.'
Idea
Expose the gap between stated values and actual behaviour by turning the most common EV excuses into a publicly trackable social experiment — letting real would-be switchers livestream their daily commutes in a Volvane EV to prove, in real time, that their own excuses didn't hold up.
Execution
Volvane recruited 100 self-proclaimed 'not-yet-ready' EV sceptics across ten European cities through targeted social ads that deliberately baited the most common excuses. Each participant was given a Volvane EV for 30 days with a dashboard-mounted camera and a live data feed showing remaining range, charging stops, and daily kilometres. Their journeys were streamed on a dedicated platform and edited into short social episodes titled by each person's original excuse — 'I'd run out on the school run,' 'There's nowhere to charge in my neighbourhood,' 'It wouldn't handle my weekend drives.' A weekly connected TV recap show compiled the most dramatic excuse-versus-reality reveals. At the end of the month, participants publicly declared whether they'd switch or keep their excuse. The campaign culminated with a real-time 'Excuse Counter' billboard in each city centre showing how many local excuses had been retired.