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Volvo Turns a Breakup Into a Branded Music Film for Israel
Volvo's "Call My Name" is a branded music film released in Israel in January 2018, starring Israeli actress Yuval Scharf driving a Volvo V40 through a surreal, emotionally charged animated journey set on the roads between Jerusalem and Jericho, with an original song performed by The Goldman Brothers serving as its narrative and sonic spine.
The campaign entered public distribution on 11 January 2018, according to The Drum, reaching audiences across digital, music, and social channels. Its premise is intimate rather than aspirational in the conventional automotive sense: a woman processes the end of a relationship by taking to the road, and as she drives, the landscape around her transforms into vivid animated sequences that externalise her internal state. The Volvo V40 is the constant — steady, present, and reliable — while the world outside shifts and dissolves. This positioning aligns the vehicle with emotional endurance rather than speed or status, a deliberate tonal choice for the Israeli market.
Written and directed by Tal Zagreba and produced by Lior Miller under the Great Guns production banner, the film represents a convergence of music video craft and automotive content strategy. Co-producers Laura Gregory and Sheridan Thomas contributed to the production's international scope. The campaign contains a single media asset, as documented by Clapboard, and was submitted to the archive more than seven years ago. In the Israeli automotive advertising landscape of 2018, the decision to anchor a car campaign to a breakup narrative and an original song by The Goldman Brothers marked a clear departure from the product-led conventions of the category. Clapboard rates the campaign 72 out of 100.
Volvo operates in Israel as a premium automotive brand competing directly against German marques with deep regional roots. In 2018, Mercedes-Benz reported global sales of approximately 2.31 million vehicles, up 0.9 percent year over year, according to Volvo Group's own published comparatives and reporting from Press Bmwgroup. BMW Group reported sales of approximately 2.491 million vehicles across the BMW, Mini, and Rolls-Royce brands in that same year, up 1.1 percent, per press.bmwgroup.com. These figures illustrate the scale of competitive pressure Volvo faced globally and, by extension, in a concentrated market like Israel, where premium brand perception is shaped by both international positioning and local resonance.
The strategic rationale behind "Call My Name" appears rooted in differentiation through emotional authenticity rather than feature-led messaging. Where competitors such as Mercedes-Benz and BMW have historically relied on performance narratives and aspirational lifestyle imagery, Volvo's Israeli execution chose vulnerability and personal narrative as its creative territory. The choice to set the film on the roads between Jerusalem and Jericho — a route that carries both geographic specificity and cultural weight within Israel — signals a campaign designed to speak to a local audience rather than repurpose a global asset. By anchoring the story in a recognisable Israeli landscape and casting Yuval Scharf, an actress with established local profile, the campaign pursues emotional proximity as a form of brand differentiation. The Goldman Brothers' original song reinforces this by giving the campaign a culturally legible sonic identity within the Israeli market rather than relying on licensed international music.
Tal Zagreba conceived and directed "Call My Name," bringing to the project a vision of a half-animated breakup film that merges documentary road footage with expressive 2D animation, as reported by The Drum and LBBonline. The result is a creative format that sits between branded content, music video, and short film — a hybrid that allowed the production team to work across live-action cinematography and post-production animation within a single cohesive piece.
Robert Moreno served as animation director, post supervisor, 2D animator, compositor, visual effects artist, colorist, and editor — a remarkable breadth of responsibility that shaped the film's distinctive aesthetic. The animated sequences, which represent the emotional interior of Yuval Scharf's character as she drives through the Israeli wilderness, are layered directly onto live-action footage shot by cinematographer Daniel Miller. Aerial videography was provided by DRONZ, adding scope to the desert landscape sections filmed between Jerusalem and Jericho. The production company Great Guns supported the project, with Lior Miller serving as both producer and executive producer. Co-producers Laura Gregory and Sheridan Thomas contributed to the international production infrastructure, and Boaz Pesenzon served as assistant director. The cast featured Yuval Scharf alongside Lior Golan. The Goldman Brothers composed and performed the film's title song, which functions simultaneously as narrative device, emotional cue, and product-adjacent branding element — the song title matching the campaign name exactly and ensuring that the music and the automotive message remain inseparable across digital and social distribution.
No verified performance data for the "Call My Name" campaign is publicly available. Media spend, view counts, conversion data, and brand-lift metrics have not been disclosed, and the campaign archive does not record awards recognition for this execution, as documented by Clapboard. An assessment of structural effectiveness is therefore appropriate.
The campaign's single-asset format, distributed across digital, music, and social channels in Israel, reflects a content strategy built for depth of engagement rather than reach saturation. A branded music film of this nature performs most effectively when the song achieves independent circulation — when listeners encounter "Call My Name" by The Goldman Brothers through music platforms and return to the film through curiosity about the brand. This closed loop between audio and visual content is a structurally sound mechanism for sustained organic exposure, particularly in a mid-sized market like Israel where a culturally resonant piece of content can travel efficiently through social sharing.
The decision to cast Yuval Scharf, a recognisable Israeli actress, and to film on the visually distinctive roads between Jerusalem and Jericho, further supports local resonance and shareability. Clapboard rates the campaign 72 out of 100, reflecting competent creative execution and a coherent emotional strategy, with room to have extended the campaign's reach through additional assets or platform-specific adaptations. The core creative idea — a car as companion through emotional disruption — is transferable and strategically defensible as a brand positioning for Volvo in the Israeli automotive market.
Volvo's "Call My Name" is a branded music film released in Israel in January 2018. It follows an Israeli woman driving a Volvo V40 through an animated emotional journey after a breakup, set on the roads between Jerusalem and Jericho, with an original song performed by The Goldman Brothers.
Tal Zagreba wrote and directed "Call My Name" for Volvo in Israel. Lior Miller served as executive producer, with Great Guns as the production company. Robert Moreno handled animation direction, visual effects, compositing, color grading, and editing across the entire post-production process.
Israeli actress Yuval Scharf stars in the "Call My Name" film alongside Lior Golan. Scharf plays a woman navigating the emotional aftermath of a breakup while driving a Volvo V40 through the Israeli wilderness between Jerusalem and Jericho, as reported by The Drum.
The Goldman Brothers are a music act whose original song "Call My Name" anchors Volvo's 2018 Israeli campaign. The song shares its title with the campaign itself, functioning as both emotional narrative device and brand identity element distributed across digital, music, and social channels in Israel.
The campaign was filmed on the roads between Jerusalem and Jericho in Israel, as documented by Clapboard. Aerial footage of the desert landscape was captured by DRONZ, with cinematography by Daniel Miller. The setting provides geographic and cultural specificity designed to resonate with the Israeli market.
Volvo's "Call My Name" campaign receives a Clapboard Score of 72 out of 100. The score reflects competent creative execution and a coherent emotional strategy built around the Volvo V40, with identified opportunity to extend impact through additional assets or platform-specific content variations beyond the single released film.
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