This is relevant for PR because Ford effectively harnessed its social channels and media partnerships to stimulate a diverse and much needed conversation around homophobia and discrimination - not just within audiences of advocacy groups, but mainstream audiences, too. By responding boldly and immediately to discrimination within the pickup truck category on their own social channels, Ford disrupted the dialogue and created a highly visible platform to speak out about discrimination.

Ford’s ongoing communications brief is to drive their brand purpose and values through communications that not only deepens desire for their products but also supports their commitment to be a leader in diversity and inclusion.

The brand has proudly been a driving force in building ‘tough’ muscle-truck culture, but unfortunately, this culture can sometimes bring a toxic undercurrent of homophobia.

When Ford posted a YouTube film launching its Ranger Raptor, the homophobia surfaced, with a commenter describing the colour as “very Gay!!

Ford, a long-term champion of LGBTQI+ inclusion through its 25-year+ ERG Ford Pride, decided enough was enough.

This offensive comment became the catalyst for Ford to respond swiftly, decisively and meaningfully.

The overarching idea was simple: Ford drives out discrimination by redefining tough.

Ford re-edited the original film giving their Ranger Raptor a photoshopped gold glitter and Pride rainbow paint job, and posted The ‘Very Gay’ Raptor across their social channels to show solidarity with the LGBTQI+ community.

Further highlighting muscle truck culture’s homophobia problem, its new paint job proved polarising, receiving responses of disgust and delight, including requests for the Very Gay Raptor to be ‘made real’. So that’s exactly what they did. Ford’s Very Gay Raptor made its IRL debut at Cologne’s Christopher Street Day Parade, an event that Ford has supported for over 25 years.

Ford not only called out homophobia, they proudly shared their support by repurposing one of their most ‘badass’ vehicles into an unapologetic beacon of their desire to drive change.

As a major protagonist in automotive culture, Ford recognised that this can come with an undercurrent of homophobia. A long-term champion of LGBTQI+ inclusion, Ford embraced the challenge to drive industry change through a clear message to car lovers, everywhere: Ford is redefining tough in order to drive out discrimination.

Working with Ford’s Pride ERG and , the tonality was intentional: Proud, not aggressive. Playful but purposeful. Reactive but not retaliatory. This was about allyship, not opportunism.

When it came to the ‘IRL Very Gay Raptor’ Ford let it speak for itself. Revealed at Cologne’s Christopher Street Day Parade, proudly driven by members of Ford’s Pride ERG, the event-day buzz was the perfect platform to take our message far and wide.

Ford didn’t stop there. A critical part of the strategy was ensuring this was the start of a commitment to drive change – not just a PR stunt.

The campaign was executed as follows:

1. JUNE 2021: Original clapback social post ‘Very gay is a compliment, right?’ (Pan-European distribution via Ford’s Twitter and IG, no paid support)

2. JULY 2021: IRL Very Gay Raptor at Christopher Street Day parade, Cologne & supporting press release – distributed to German consumer, auto and LGBTQI+ media and international newswires

3. JULY 2021: LinkedIn post from Head of FordPro Europe

4. JULY / ongoing… Very Gay Raptor employee tour of Ford plants in Germany & UK and appearance at relevant automotive and LGBTQI+ events subsequently

5. AUGUST 2021: Follow up social post ‘You asked us to make it real, so we did’ (pan-European distribution via Ford’s twitter and IG, no paid support)

The plan was carefully crafted in conjunction with the UK and German chairpersons of Ford Pride – Ford’s LGBTQI+ resource group, in order to ensure the right tonality.

Over 200m media and social impressions to date:

• 140+ media articles, with a reach of over 22 million (Prime-Cision). This earned media generated over 146m+ impressions and 38k total post interactions on Facebook.

• Recorded from Ford of Europe’s social listening tool, Visibrain, it is estimated that social content gained over 5.9m+ impressions, 118k engagements on Instagram and around 32m+ impressions, 4.5k+ tweets/re-tweets via Twitter.

• On the Ford of Europe channels, we recorded more than 4m organic impressions and 307k+ total engagements on the recent VGR post. These results are significantly higher than Ford’s usual organic performance across Twitter and Instagram.

• A Brandwatch sentiment analysis found, that although there was some negativity on the post (8%), 91% were neutral-positive

• Popular TikTok influencer Josh Helfgott (4.5M followers) posted a positive video of the #VeryGayRaptor, viewed 5.5 million times, 1.3M likes and 12.3k comments

The impact of this campaign goes way beyond media and social impressions. Standing on the shoulders of 25+ years of Ford’s allyship of LBGTQI+ employees, Very Gay Raptor has been part of a wider cultural transformation for Ford, kick-starting their leadership of a cross-industry antidiscrimination program called Driving Pride, to accelerate that transformation more widely.