WORK: Ford Focus - Start more than a car
Overview
The all-new Focus was Ford’s first global car and our job was to advertise it – globally. With the vehicle’s advanced technology as our unifying story, we launched a fully integrated ‘Start more’ campaign to tell it. To see the work, start here.
Digital
A microsite experience enabled people to see videos showing the car’s impressive technology in action. Hotspots and dip-downs allowed them to explore those features in greater detail and an innovative 360 tool gave them the ability to custom create their dream Focus.
For online media, we chose product technologies that we could really bring to life in the formats chosen. To dramatise Lane Departure Warning, for example, the banner vibrates – just like the steering wheel in the car.
A series of emails each lead with a strong visual of a single feature, before communicating an impressive list of other technologies. And because the car would really surprise people who hadn’t driven a Ford for ages, if at all, we deliberately targeted a conquest audience.
Social Media
This YouTube film supported our European pre-launch campaign for the all-new Focus. By building it in a YouTube player, we were able to use annotations to deliver an interactive experience: a standalone microsite in a single likeable and shareable video. Smart.
Earned Media
Invite people from around the world to experience the all-new Focus before anyone else, at a test track in Spain, and do it all for charity: that was the idea developed with our sister agency Team Detroit. Content for this Global Test Drive received over 11 million impressions following the Madrid event alone. And while promoting the car, the campaign fundraised over $400,000 – demonstrating propagation planning at it’s purest.
Experiential
Our brief? Showcase two of Ford’s innovative technologies to visitors at motor shows and other live events across Europe, utilise the latest technology to deliver an interactive experience, and make it fun!
We developed the world’s first branded games on Microsoft’s Kinect system enabling people to try and outperform Ford’s Active Park Assist and Traffic Sign Recognition systems. The games proved so successful as pilots that Microsoft aim to use them as a case study and subsequently created an official Kinect SDK release.
Direct Mail
The direct marketing pack used a series of fold out reveals to highlight the car’s technologies – giving people just enough information to compel them to find out more.
Print/OOH
Dynamic shots of the car; confident, punchy copy to highlight key features; and a graphic line to unite them: the print work had a suitably distinctive, high-tech look and feel.
TV
With the all-new Focus, there’s a lot to talk about. But instead of trying to cram everything into a few ads, we decided to communicate the technologies one at a time (making each more memorable). Allowing for variations across markets, 16 scripts became 50-plus TVCs.
