The best brands can be summed up with a single word. That used to be the wisdom about branding, but these days with media fragmentation and too many cooks in the kitchen, too many brands try to be too many things to too many people.

Like Volvo. For years and years and years, Volvo meant "safety." And some damn fine advertising came out of that brief.

Then, I don't know why, they started moving away from that message. Not that I can remember a single ad for Volvo in the last several years. I looked around online and found a bunch of stuff with running footage, pretty songs and people happily piloting twisty roads in their ultimate driving machine...Oh wait, wrong ad.

So I was heartened to see a Volvo ad the other day with Volvo's brand strength once again the centerpiece -- albeit, in a slightly different way than the past.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, Edward Cullen drives a Volvo.

In case you haven't read the Twilight series, Edward Cullen is the impossibly gorgeous, scrupulously moral, incredibly rich vampire who is obsessed with protecting the delicate, fragile, mortal love of his life, Bella, from all manner of danger, from the undead or otherwise.

He drives a Volvo in the movie, but more importantly, he drove one in the book. I'm assuming Stefanie Meyer didn't write Twilight with product placement in mind, so why did she choose a Volvo as Edward's ride of choice? Perhaps she, like pretty much every consumer in the Western world, associates the brand with that single word.

Glad to see Volvo capitalizing on the brand association in a way that makes real sense.

Of course, some people might dismiss this as a mistake, marketing a luxury car to a teenybopper audience. But those same people probably don't talk to the same professional women I do, women who have the money to buy a Volvo and passionately embrace, with complete earnestness, everything about a pale vampire teenager who sparkles. And the campaign website features not only the bigger (and pricier) XC60, but also the more attainable C30.

Can we expect a Volvo cinema ad when New Moon premieres on November 20th? I'll be there to find out.