• by Karl Greenberg , January 3, 2007

Volvo has thrown wide the doors, inviting European TV viewers to tell the company what they think of its new C30 compact wagon. Sixteen TV spots created by Fuel, a London-based unit of EuroRSCG, show positive and negative takes on the C30 and ask, "What do you think?" Viewers can rate the ads on a 1-to-10 scale at Volvocars.com.

The crafty ads include video that acts like pre-production footage, with placeholder text such as "carefully researched tag-line withdrawn," "subliminal free zone" and "expensive pre-loader movie removed." At the end, the car drives out of a cardboard box, and a crude cartoon character leaps out, leaping in joy or throwing up as the ad asks Web visitors to exercise their free will in expressing their love or hate of the vehicle.

While the campaigns are visible online to all at the Web site, don't look for the ads to make an official leap across the pond.

James Hope, Volvo Cars North America product communications manager, said the company may keep the "free will" theme but is developing a distinctly American market campaign for the car via EuroRSCG's Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer, New York. He said it was too early to say whether the U.S. effort will mirror the global "love it/hate it" theme.

The C30, which was unveiled at the Paris Auto Show last fall and started rolling into dealerships in Europe last month, is based on a Ford Focus platform and aimed at entry buyers and young urbanites cross-shopping cars like the BMW 1-series and Audi A3. But when it hits U.S. markets in late 2007 as a 2008 model, Volvo will offer only the up-market or T5 version, according to Hope.

In the U.S., he said, the car will likely be priced above Volvo's entry car, the S40, which starts at $24,240, and will compete with cars like VW GTI, possibly VW Rabbit, and Audi A3. "It will be a younger buyer than for S40; it's really the enthusiast performance version of the C30 that will come here. In Europe it's being marketed much more as a mass market vehicle."

Though Volvo posted a 14.1% increase in sales in the U.S., in November, year-to-date sales were down 6.3%, partly because the company has just replaced its S80 sedan.