Everyone is aware that Bill Ford stepped down from his top job at Ford to make room for former Boeing chief Alan Mulally. Bill stays on as executive chairman (and gets a pat on the back phone call from George Bush). This is a company in trouble, and they aren't afraid to admit it.
Bold moves all around for Ford, which includes the Bold Moves website from JWT. From its minimalist black and red highlighted design to the stark honesty of the state of its company contained in the featured videos and copy, Ford lifts the curtain and lets you see a company worried about the future yet optimistically charging into it.
Particularly enjoyable in Episode 11 of the videos is the sight of a Toyota plant under construction in Texas, which Ford execs and their local dealers stake out to reveal that the construction workers building the plant favor Ford F-150 trucks. Interviews in other videos reveal the car company's brass talking candidly about a company with a rich past and a very uncertain future. Also included are rank and file Ford plant workers, showing them as links in a long chain of American workers, "Building America" as it were. Ford chiefs talk openly about layoffs and the pain that such decisions bring them. A point-counterpoint feature shows something ridiculously refreshing-- a company entertaining opposing views in its advertising.
This sort of honesty in advertising is what the consuming public longs for and responds to. There's nothing in this website of a technological nature that deserves special recognition; video with comment capability is standard fare these days. What is uncommon and noteworthy, however, is a giant as big as a Ford admitting fear, yet facing that fear with a freshness that could likely be more effective than any standard big automaker's approach to advertising.
-- Dave Wilkie, VP, creative, Kinetic Results and author of advertising blog Where's My Jetpack?
I had seen a lot of work around the launch of the Bold Moves tagline-- TV, print and a few banners online. While I get the positioning and the strategy, the articulation said little to me. But this site, or should I say video channel, for Bold Moves actually has some power behind it.
JWT and Radical Media (this really feels like Radical Media work) have done a nice job putting together what are now 12 episodes of mini documentary/editorial videos. If you watch the first two episodes, the impression is the stories would be hard hitting, inside-the-belly-of-the-beast material. It backs away from that pretty quickly in the third installment, but even with the slightly softer tone, the work outlines the key issues for a company that is in transition. The blog format for commentary is a nice addition, but seems to raise a question that I am seeing a lot for brand work-- if you build the blog, will they write? While there are some interesting nuggets there, I am not feeling that this site has found that passionate car nut, or Ford aficionado audience, to fuel it.
Radical Media is probably the best there is for this type of long-form "adumentory" work. This is good stuff-- I found most of the pieces compelling, timely and well done, though I would love to see it hang together a bit more and continue the all cards on the table tone of the first two episodes. As to the grander story arc, I guess we will have to watch the marketplace and the business news to see if this tagline, working as a rally cry, will actually signal change, or will be remembered as just a bit of marketing from 2006.
-- Glen Sheehan, creative director, T3
