Volvo Trucks Epic Split (2013): how a B2B brand made the year most-shared ad

The Live Test Series context

In early 2013, Volvo Trucks was launching a new generation of its FM and FMX models. Volvo Trucks is one of the largest heavy-truck brands in the world and competes in a B2B category where buying decisions are made by fleet managers and procurement teams. Conventional truck advertising at the time was a mix of trade press, dealer events, and product demonstrations — not mass-culture creative.

Volvo Trucks and its agency Forsman & Bodenfors took a different approach. They built a series of films called Live Test Series, each designed to demonstrate a specific feature of the new trucks through a memorable stunt. The films released through 2012-2013 included Volvo CEO Olof Persson standing on a truck cab suspended over a Gothenburg shipyard (testing the chassis), a hamster steering a truck up a steep quarry (testing steering precision), and a truck balancing on a rope between two cliffs (testing dynamic steering). Each film was released on YouTube and got a meaningful audience. The Epic Split was film number six.

The Epic Split itself

The 76-second film shows Jean-Claude Van Damme standing with one foot on each of two Volvo FM trucks driving in reverse on a Spanish road. The trucks slowly separate. Van Damme does a full split between them. Enya Only Time plays throughout. A voiceover from Van Damme says: “I have had my ups and downs. My fair share of bumpy roads and heavy winds. But still I am alive. And I am balancing myself.”

The technical claim was about Volvo Dynamic Steering — the precision and stability of the new steering system. The stunt was performed by Van Damme himself in a single take. The trucks were genuinely reversing at speed. Andreas Nilsson directed for B-Reel. The shoot took place on a closed road near Malaga, Spain. The film was released on YouTube on November 13, 2013.

What grew

The Epic Split was the most-shared ad of 2013 by some measures. YouTube views passed 50 million within weeks and climbed past 100 million within months. Mainstream press covered the film as a phenomenon. The trade press covered the campaign as a B2B marketing model. Volvo Trucks moved from being a recognisable industrial brand in Europe to a brand with global consumer mindshare.

The business impact, as reported in Volvo Trucks Cannes Lions Creative Effectiveness submission in 2015, was meaningful sales growth in the brand core European markets over the campaign window, with the company citing the Live Test Series as a significant contributor. The campaign won the Cannes Lions Film Grand Prix and the Titanium Grand Prix in 2014, and won the Creative Effectiveness Grand Prix in 2015 — an unusual triple where the same campaign wins both craft and effectiveness top awards.

How RGM thinks about B2B brand creative

When clients in B2B categories ask whether mass-culture creative is worth investing in, The Epic Split is the structural example we point to. The B2B argument is usually: our buyers are a small specific audience, why spend money reaching the broader public? Volvo Trucks counter-argument was that the broader public coverage built brand familiarity that flowed through to fleet managers in two ways: those buyers were themselves consuming the broader media that covered the campaign, and trade-press coverage of the consumer impact validated Volvo Trucks as a credible global brand to do business with.

The pattern does not suit every B2B category. Categories where the buyer is purely transactional (commodity inputs, low-differentiation services) get less brand lift from mass-culture creative than categories where buyers have meaningful brand preferences (heavy equipment, enterprise software, healthcare devices). We tell clients to assess whether brand really matters in their buying decision before committing to expensive creative work.

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