Ford’s Strength became a stereotype.

Decades of advertising cemented, and brand research confirmed, the meaning of the Ford brand: Strength.

While the meaning of Strength had a lot of positivity, the way it had been brought to life was one-dimensional: born from trucks, blue collar jobs and the physicality of strength.

This stereotype was limiting Ford’s potential with younger, future car buyers, shown in declining brand relevance scores.

We couldn’t walk away from Ford’s equity in strength, but we needed to expand the definition to force reevaluation.

Put Ford’s meaning into culture

With media investment lower than the category, Ford needed to earn an unfair share of earned.

We saw an opportunity by partnering with unexpected Ford drivers. In a mutually beneficial, authentic, equity exchange, these real Ford drivers helped expand the meaning of the Ford brand, while their relationship to Ford helped expand their own reputation in culture.

Introducing a new side of Ford

We turned our Built Ford Proud Campaign, previously used to herald our strengths, towards what we’re most proud of: real Ford Drivers.

Unexpected faces of Ford

Similar to Ford, this partnership allowed our talent to break down one-dimensional stereotypes.

Sydney has been painted as a Hollywood bombshell, playing an object of desire. We wanted to show her unexpected side, a woman with a long-standing love of restoring vintage cars.

Dee Bryant’s career has been stunt driving for other actors, but this gave her the chance to be the star and tell her come up story.

Kai Lenny, big wave surfer, was also able to expand the appreciation of his sport — from a reputation for beach bums to the incredible mental and physical preparation needed to be a champion.

3 different perspectives, 3 new sides of 3 amazing, real, Ford drivers.

We needed to subvert Ford’s equity

Ford’s strength has been signaled in one-dimensional ways. Focusing on trucks and blue collar jobs. While those things are incredibly valuable to this country, and Ford, strength means so much more. When you look at the world today, you see those forms of strength being celebrated beyond the physical — mental, emotional, inner.

Real Ford Drivers are strong in different ways

Ford drivers aren’t just heavy duty workers, campers, or men with trucks who fish by lakes.

When you scratch below the surface you see families, street racers, off-roaders, touring bands, mobile dog groomers, long distance holiday travelers–the list goes on.

They embody a spirit of inner strength that the brand had yet to shine a spotlight on.

Knowing this, we set out to highlight our most exemplary drivers, and invite other Ford drivers who share the same spirit to share their stories too.

We needed to expand Ford’s meaning in Strength by turning the spotlight towards our biggest strength: real Ford Drivers. This meant the talent we selected needed to be some of our most exemplary drivers — those that were breaking the mold in their own lives.

We began with an exhaustive list of true Ford drivers and then filtered them based on having an unexpected story and an ability for them to help Ford build cultural capital.

After multiple interviews to understand their stories, we narrowed down to three Ford Drivers:

1. Sydney Sweeney, a Hollywood bombshell who also fully rebuilt a Bronco by hand

2. Kai Lenny, a surfer, who mentally prepares to surf 100-foot waves, supported by a fleet of Ford trucks to tow his gear out to sea.

3. Dee Bryant, one of the few black, female stunt drivers, who trained to be the best with a Mustang.

Ford, meet Vogue

Ford campaigns are often covered by auto publications, but our goal was to reach beyond that

As a first for Ford, the Sydney Workwear Line landed Ford among the pages of Vogue and Maxim and covered by the Drew Barrymore Show.

This same love was echoed online, with a +46% increase in Ford mentions, a 3:1 positive sentiment, memed by accounts like @ThrowingFits and comments like: “This was eye opening, she’s more than the role she plays in Euphoria that’s for damn sure. A fucking badass”

The hats and overalls sold out in 24 hours, without any paid media, driving +12x visits than the previous 5-day average.

Ford’s YouTube channel saw 2.1x more views, with more than 8x of the viewers being new to Ford than on average.

The Ford x Drivers work has totaled nearly 100M earned impressions, but we’re just getting started.