British Marketing Week wrote that Swedish carmaker Volvo is planning to be “more direct, aggressive and competitive” in its marketing strategy, after admitting that the brand had been neglected for a number of years.

“It’s very hard to be one amongst several premium automotive brands, so we couldn’t talk about design and aesthetics as much because that’s where Jaguar sat and we couldn’t talk about robustness because that’s where Land Rover sits, so we ended up being the middle safe sister.” said Richard Monturo, global CMO and former ad agency planner, who was was brought on board by new CEO Stefan Jacoby last year to refine the brand strategy after the business was sold by Ford.

“We were insecure or a little lacking in confidence so a lot of Volvo advertising was apologetic and started off with the idea ‘you think we’re boring, but we’re not’. We kept apologising for what people previously thought about the brand, but now we’re not going to apologise for going to the market and being competitive and direct with the customer and stating our case for why we think Volvos are great cars”, he told Marketing Week.