Volvo has studied real-world accidents since the 1970s. But when it comes to seat belt usage, it’s still difficult to understand what happens during an accident before the accident happens. As a result, there is a large research gap that needs to be filled.

In 2019, we unveiled The E.V.A. Initiative where we shared all of Volvo's safety research. After a successful response, Volvo wanted to extend the campaign on social media and remind people about Volvo’s never-ending work towards equal car safety.

The initial objective was to remind people of The E.V.A. Initiative. But we wanted to do more than just remind people—we wanted to create something that could add further value to the existing research. Therefore, the new objective was to use crowdsourcing data and encourage people to contribute to safety research.

We created a global research method that turned car selfies into safety research. To contribute, all people had to do was post a selfie while wearing their seat belt and use the campaign hashtag. We launched on Instagram, the most popular platform for selfies, where we encouraged people worldwide to join the largest crowdsourced study for car safety. Every picture, becoming an important piece in Volvo’s research to make all roads safer.

This idea is the result of a close relationship with Dr. Lotta Jakobsson, Senior Technical Specialist at Volvo Cars Safety Centre. When we realized there was a large research gap for safety belt usage, we started to research and gather data around how to solve this problem, and what kind of photos that could be helpful. In other words, the planning played a key role in uncovering this insight and finally developing the campaign.

We chose social channels and Instagram as the main platform for the campaign. Both because it’s the most popular platform for selfies, but also because it’s where we saw the most potential to engage people. We started the campaign with a launch film that showed people how to contribute. Then, we continuously followed that up with quick, bite-sized content on social media; reminding people that their contribution could possibly help save lives.

Over 90 million selfies are posted per day. Whether we like them or not, they are huge part of modern life—and a huge part of social media. That’s why we decided to use social as the main channel to invite people around the world to take selfies. Only this time, their selfies could be a life-saving research tool.

The campaign kickstarted with a launch film that explained the initiative and showed people how to contribute. Once the word started to spread, we followed it up with quick, bite-sized content through selected influencers, Facebook, Instagram, and reminders from Dr.Lotta Jakobsson at Volvo Cars Safety Centre herself. All of it designed to reach and get as many people as possible to contribute.

After the pictures were published on social media, they were analyzed by Volvo’s Safety Department. This resulted in a major finding we couldn’t have found elsewhere: 4 in 10 people wore seat belt incorrectly. So we sent instructions to both participants and the public where we raised awareness of this and showed the correct way of wearing it in a simple way.

Few studies on occupants shoulder position in cars are available, and this study which incorporates a wide data compilation in occupant sizes, car models and international contribution, is therefore valuable and unique. Most importantly, all the learnings will be used to create safer cars in the future. The research is available for everyone to download on Volvo’s website.

Selfies submitted: +3000

Reach: +51 000 000

Total engagements: +270 000

Positive comments (based on the campaign): 85%