Volvo labs had been working on ‘digital key’ technology that allowed a car to be opened remotely. But the tech wasn’t meaningful to consumers. It was our job to turn this into a great story that would resonate and crate buzz within the media and our audience.

Based on the insight that home delivery of online shopping is a headache (wait in for the delivery man or travel to a collection point), we took the Volvo technology and created Roam; the world’s first direct-to-car delivery product. Operated via an app, Volvo drivers would be able to give a delivery company access to the trunk of their car for a fixed time period (the rest of the car was immobilized). This fitted well with Volvo’s safety positioning (it keeps your parcels safe) and was a great innovation story for our tech savvy target audience. Our development budget was just £20k.

Roam Delivery began as a pilot with 1000 (one thousand) connected Volvo cars in Sweden. It operates via the existing Volvo app which talks to the software within a connected Volvo.

Roam is a completely safe system. Drivers are able to give permission to a delivery company to access their car for a specified period of time. The only door that will open is the trunk. The rest of the car is immobilised. The was primarily designed to be a new, tech story to give owners and prospects a good story to talk about and make them feel that Volvo was innovating in the connected car space.

However, when it was announced to the press as a world first at The Mobile World Congress in early 2015 the media response was so enormous that it was fully rolled out in November 2015.

All the hundreds of thousands of connected Volvo cars, old and new, now have Roam as an option.