I drive a Toyota 4Runner. I like my Toyota and think they are very reliable vehicles. I had a Ford. Once. But something made me take notice when I started to see ads for the new 2011 Ford Mustang and hearing about how the NASCAR Nationwide Series was bringing a Mustang front-end to its new cars, so I started doing a little digging online. What I found was near perfect interactive execution and strategy.
According to Scott Monty, Ford's social media guru (@scottmonty), the campaign is the brainchild of Team Detroit.
What do I like about this campaign so much?
Total market segment understanding:
This campaign knows it's core potential customer base and knows how to appeal to them while still keeping the door open for new enthusiasts. I believe the accomplish this best with their 'Unleashed' video shorts. Instead of just appealing to sports car enthusiasts in a general way, they focused on segments within that category such as drifting, drag racing, rally racing, video game racing and bonding road trip outings.
Excellent interactive production values and execution:
The site itself offers a little bit of something for everyone such as a customizer that allows you to create and share your dream Mustang as well as user generated stories and videos that were part of a contest.
But what impresses me most is the creative execution that went into the videos. The storyboarding, the shoots, the post production, and most importantly, finding the subject matter and stories to tell. These videos are a clinic on how to attach human emotions to steel and machine.
They've taken the emotional attachment people have with their cars to a new level. I mean, they even got blind people to be passionate about the car.