Ford: One Truck, A Thousand Ads

Challenge

Henry Ford said of his revolutionary assembly line Model T that buyers could have the car in “any color they like, as long as it’s black.” Standardization and efficiency brought the automobile to the masses, but customization? That’ll cost you extra.

Today’s car shoppers have unlimited opportunities for personalization, and they have increasing expectations to see their vehicle before they see it in person. Consumers can go online and build their dream car in a few clicks. And those that are ready to buy? The automakers are going after them with customized advertising messages that encourage them to visit their local showroom.

Ford U.S. has a network of more than 2,900 dealerships across 30 different dealership groups in the country. The high stakes competitive nature of the industry is reflected in huge ad budgets across every channel, and an extremely wide variety of promotions and offers unique to each dealer or region. On its own corporate website, dealer websites, and third party video channels like YouTube, the ability to quickly generate new content to reflect changing offers is a competitive advantage.

Ford needed a way to streamline video production processes, reduce production costs and generate personalized creative videos that support each market’s unique offers. Ford US needed what Henry Ford could only dream of – customization AND efficiency AND scale.

Our approach

The Choreograph Create dynamic content platform easily integrated with the Ford dealer ad serving platform using a dynamic modular template that automatically renders a new video whenever offers change. This enabled Ford to quickly adapt to constantly changing campaign objectives, eliminate manual processes to optimize its advertising production, and serve localized, relevant content to its diverse target audiences.

The Ford F150 truck is the number one selling truck in America year after year. New engines and a new aluminum body together with disruptive supply chain issues made the 2021 model year an extremely important one. Using Choreograph Create, Ford was able to render custom videos highlighting truck features such as power and performance with custom pricing and sales offers unique to dealer groups. A buyer in California would not only see a video that matched their interests, the localized financing and pricing offer content was automated, too.

Not only did Choreograph Create support customization, it allowed Ford to quickly adjust offers at a much lower cost than traditional ad building processes, with fewer errors. And it did it faster, allowing the dealer groups to adjust depending on demand and response.

Data-driven results

Truck people love to compare numbers, and the numbers generated by Choreograph Create for Ford are impressive. Within a few short months, the product generated 1,300 unique custom video renders in support of 15 specific dealer offers. Building that many videos manually would have been virtually impossible, not to mention prohibitively expensive.

Most importantly, the custom videos worked, generating a significant 13 percent increase in purchase intent. That translates into more buyers in the showrooms and higher sales for both dealers and Ford US. And the messages resonated even with those not initially ready to buy.  With Choreograph Create, Ford also saw an increase in retargeting effectiveness, sending the customized offer to site visitors on multiple visits.

Given the turmoil in the industry and changing expectations of buyers, custom offer videos are not an accessory for automakers, they’re standard equipment. Building videos and other creative at scale, with efficiencies in production and distribution, plus the ability to change and customize them quickly is the next revolution in automotive sales and marketing.