Today's Ford execs have it easy: the company's founder, Henry Ford, is still one of the industry's biggest quote providers, having covered almost every conceivable area during his lifetime, as if foreseeing how important his opinions would be for the company's future.
That made the job of those who have to come up with Ford's communication strategy a very simple one. "OK, so what message do we want to convey this time, George?" "We need to tell people about smart mobility and stuff like that, Bryan." "Oh, crap, they didn't have that back when Henry Ford lived, what are we going to do?" "Don't worry, Bryan, I'm sure Henry Ford said something that we can twist around and link with this next step in the automotive world."
And, guess what, George was right. As improbable as it may seem, Henry Ford did actually say something that doesn't appear out of place in the context of self-driving cars, smartphone apps, and generally speaking, having the world at your fingertips wherever you are.
The quote that's at the core of one of Ford's latest advertising spots goes like this: "If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself." Well, that could be applied to a number of things - including the production of cotton candy - but since it was Henry Ford who said it, we're going to go with the creatives who came up with the idea of this new campaign.
And it could very well be an important change for Ford, as the company is trying to shift the way people see its products and its image (and life itself, if we're to believe the press release - which we don't). The word Ford wants us to get to grips with - the one that also provides the title for this new campaign - is "unlearn." The company thinks that only by forgetting what we believe we know about things in general - and cars and transportation in particular - will we be ready to embrace the future.
Is Ford calling us a bunch of conservative uptights stuck in the past? Not really, sure, but all the while I was watching the new advertisements I was expecting them to end with the voiceover saying "and now you know how it's made." If you watch the Discovery channel, you'll know what I mean.
The campaign consists of several video clips tackling different things the new or future Ford cars can do, but we've only selected a few, including the self-proclaimed campaign manifesto. Have a look here:
"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie) Full profile
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