Volvo FMX is child's play…

Volvo has come up with a pretty neat way of showcasing the strength of its FMX – by putting a four-year-old girl behind the wheel and letting her run riot around an obstacle-strewn off-road course.

Well, actually she's controlling the truck by remote control from an elevated platform at a safe distance – avoiding the need for the disclaimer, "No four-year-olds were harmed in the making of this media campaign" – but the truck itself certainly isn't cocooned from the beating.

It's the latest in Volvo's 'Live Test' series of social media stunts and the ad seems to gaining plenty of, err, traction, pardon the pun – at the time of writing it had racked up nearly 400,000 views in its first 13 hours on YouTube.

Now while many four-year-olds are proficient with things like scooters, trikes and even bikes, they generally don't get to control an 8x4 rigid, and so our hero of the day, Sophie, has her work cut out for her negotiating the twisting course.

Along the way the truck cops a swinging crate to the front of the cab, a slide along a barrier and a dunking in a monster bog hole. Oh, and it also powers through a building and gets rolled down a slope.

Of course it's a slickly crafted and edited production but it does give a very novel twist to the age-old marketing issue of portraying your vehicle's strength – while also undoubtedly making Sophie the most popular kid in school!

We like it – check it out and see what you think…