In 2002 Ford was preparing to launch their all new F-150. Not content to rest on their #1 laurels Ford was anxious to attract a new generation of customers. Gene Brown, Truck Marketing Manager summed it up when he said that “a brand new vehicle offers us the best opportunity that we are going to get...”

Brown and his team came up with the concept for “The Big Idea” - a non-traditional campaign aimed at an expanded group of potential truck buyers. The traditional ad buy would be used to focus on new features and reinforce the traditional “Ford Tough” positioning. Campos Creative Works was invited to present concepts for “The Big Idea”. We responded with a viral grass roots campaign built around the idea of “What’s In Your Bed?”.

• We offered the chance to “win a truck for life” - to enter you had to tell us “What’s In Your Bed?”

• Ford’s commitment to the Susan G. Komen Foundation gave us the opportunity to reach out to women with a sixty day “Put A Buck In The Bed” campaign to build traffic at every dealership.

• “The Toughest Tailgate Tour” was an F-150 caravan to twelve state fairs. As a Title Sponsor, Ford would provide local dealers with a host of promotional rights.

• All of these events and more would be promoted on www.F-150-Lifetime.com (no link)

To bring our big idea to life, we made the new F-150 the Time Magazine ”Machine Of The Year” - with the cover story headline “Ford’s Big Idea”. The format enabled us to tell the story looking back at the impact of each of the campaign elements. We used the Business section to demonstrate how we would achieve exposure value equivalent to expenditure using our non-traditional techniques.

Sad to say, despite the excitement that our ideas created, the story did not have a happy ending. Our David won the battle at the stand-up, but at the end of the day, we lost the war to Goliath. JWT was awarded the business.

There is no question that as audiences continue to fragment, these kinds of campaigns will be an increasingly important alternative to traditional media buys for companies of all sizes.