CREATING A NEW IDENTITY FOR FORD

I always saw Transit as being in that small, iconic group of products - like Levi Jeans, Hoover vacuums and Google search – so beloved and accepted that they become the generic term for the category. I wanted to celebrate that for the EV.

To bring that truth to life while staying in Ford’s non-arrogant tone of voice, the team exaggerated the claim beyond reality by saying that Transit makes the world go around.

It’s just silly enough and just true enough.

The long form follows our tactic of being built from product-based modular scenes which then become short format films in their own right, appearing throughout the funnel. Directed by Traktor.

I was CD on AMV’s Ford pitch, which called for a new, contemporary and cohesive identity across all markets, and across B2C & B2B.

After we won the pitch, I started creating an identity for work based on my three observations:

- No company has affected human life as much as Ford, so although we don’t refer to history, the work must have scale.

- Despite their huge contribution to human progress, from Henry Ford’s famous quotes to their logo – four letters, one syllable - the brand is honest, unpretentious and straightforward, the work must be simple.

- To work across markets and short formats, we avoid narrative, dialogue, complexity, and people. So work must be visual.

I worked in close and happy partnership with my Ford clients to turn these rules into the new Ford look & feel. We agreed on all our principles and created it together, so it never felt like an agency-client relationship, always a partnership.

I developed a model where every campaign launched with a long format film, constructed from module scenes which could then became short form films. So then the concept, visual and tone was 100% consistent throughout up to 30 short format films, static posts and OLA carrying specific sales messaging through the funnel.

I made 11 major, cross-market, multiple channel campaigns in 4 years: new Explorer ‘Aloha’, Ranger ‘Break It In’, Ranger ‘Night Swimming’, Fordliive ‘Heartbeat’, Transit ‘Sync City’, Transit Custom ‘The Van the World Relies On’, Puma ST ‘Reads Corners’, Kuga ‘Reflections’, Ford Tourneo ‘The Van that’s a Car’, Mustang Mach E ‘SatNav’, and the Brand EV launch campaign ‘Bring On Tomorrow’.