Chevrolet’s Camaro & Ford’s Mustang have long been rivals. And nowhere is this rivalry more intensely played out than amongst the hardcore fans of the two classic muscle cars.

On Mustang’s 54th birthday, we knew Ford would be making some noise and Mustang’s fanbase would have a big reason to celebrate. But we didn’t want our own Camaro fans left out in the cold - So we decided to turn Mustang’s birthday momentum against itself, and turn the birthday into a celebration of Camaro instead.

The creative idea was simple – to have Camaro highjack Ford’s birthday, along with its #Mustang54 hashtag.

We set out to do this with a simple but impactful film that turned our car into the star of the show, without coming across as petty or jealous. That’s not something the Camaro fans would appreciate, so we had to be classy and maintain the high ground, delivering a happy birthday message that acknowledged a worthy rival.

So we baked Mustang a cake, and then made sure we had the last word, by having a speeding Camaro blow out the candles.

Brands in the region aren’t allowed to show competitors in their advertising. So, our friendly jab at Mustang’s expense needed to be approached with some tact. Feeling a bit cheeky, we turned this handicap to our advantage – using our birthday cake gift to reference Ford’s Mustang and leaning into the rivalry by giving them a cute nickname, ‘Little Pony’, that only made the Camaro look stronger.

We also made sure to monitor Mustang’s social feeds in the lead up to our video launch. Seeing that they were using #Mustang54, we made sure to hijack their birthday hashtag with our own creative. This would be key to gaining traction with both sets of fans and expanding the reach to go beyond just our own Chevy Camaro community.

This wasn’t a film for the masses. Muscle car fans would understand, and that’s all that mattered.

An obvious social occasion written on the wall…Chevrolet’s arch rivals Birthday (16th April). Their hashtag promoted to the world, #Mustang54, which opened the opportunity to be a part of their conversation.

Preempting ‘the little pony’s’ big day, we set up an engaging video response. Posting a day prior to the celebration using their hashtag, so we are filtered into their feed across all platforms (Facebook, YouTube and Instagram). Once this was done, we let the audience cheerful rivalry do the rest. From personal reuploads to applauding responses, even Global interest to talk about this astute message.

With minimal budget promoting Chevrolet’s video, it became an organic global spread campaign due to the boisterous rivalry that will go on for decades to come.

The film instantly spread like wildfire on people’s social feeds. We gave it a little push (under $4,000), but most shares & views were organic.

• Over 3.8 Million reached

• 1.6 Million views

• 81% organic views on Facebook

The film broke every Chevrolet social media record out there.

• Over 8.6K shares & re-tweets

• 6,000+ comments

• 28% engagement rate (8X higher than our engagement benchmark!

• 7% brand uplift (Facebook)

The real win was the response from our Mustang rivals. A few examples include:

• “As a Mustang owner, I love this video…. Chevrolet just won my respect.” (Facebook)

• “As a Mustang owner, I appreciate this, I love our rivalry” (Facebook)

The film captured the attention of car fans across the region, and the world, being picked up by dozens of global publications. Ad Age led with the headline: “Watch Camaro Crash Mustang’s Birthday”.