Volvo Treasure Promotion
Volvo thought its contest was a clever but innocent promotion for the XC90.
Tied in with the new Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End film from Disney, the promotion asked contestants from 22 countries to solve a series of online puzzles, culminating in a hunt for a real-life treasure chest buried somewhere at the bottom of the sea.
They didn't figure that the ship burying the chest would find a real treasure — or that the Spanish government would halt the whole enterprise while it was determined whether the treasure rightfully belongs to Spain.
Odyssey Marine Exploration, the company dispatched to bury the Volvo prize chest, selected a top-secret burial location off Gibraltar near Spain. While on the trip, however, Odyssey's crew found a fortune in silver coins elsewhere, deep in the Atlantic Ocean, in a 17th-century shipwreck they named the "Black Swan." The Spanish government — not knowing about the Volvo promotion because of Odyssey's agreement to keep it secret — suspected Odyssey of taking the booty from Spanish waters. While the issue is sorted out, the winner of the Volvo competition, Alena Zvereva from Ekaterinberg, Russia, can't get her hands on the keys to a new XC90 and $50,000 in gold coins that are tucked away on the sea floor in Volvo's treasure chest. Volvo promises she'll get the reward, although the trip out to get it from the ocean floor may not take place for a while, if at all.
"We wanted an adventure, and we certainly got one," quipped Volvo Cars of North America National Advertising Manager Linda Gangeri. Volvo's Web site for the promotion is called simply The Hunt.
