It has been 125 years since Henry Ford, a young engineer with more ambition than capital, won an improbable race in Grosse Pointe, Mich., and used the prize money to start what would become one of the world's largest automakers. Ford Racing is now invoking that origin story to sell trucks.
The campaign, which Ford is calling its biggest ever for its Raptor line of off-road vehicles, begins today with a spot during Apple TV's coverage of the United States Grand Prix in Austin, Tex. Additional airings are planned during Saturday's college football game between Mississippi and Texas on ESPN.
The advertisement was directed by Ben Affleck, who founded the production company Artists Equity with Matt Damon and who owns several Raptors himself, including a Ford F-150 Hennessey VelociRaptor. (One imagines the negotiation over creative control was brief.) The spot features the actor John Bernthal, himself a Raptor enthusiast, alongside Ford engineers who have developed the vehicle over the years.
Ford has been warming up the audience in recent days with what it called the Ford Racing Raptor Parade in Austin, following a rally last week in Lake Havasu, Ariz., that drew 11,000 fans and 480 Raptors from 31 states and Canada. The Raptor, it seems, has developed the kind of enthusiast community that most brands spend decades trying to cultivate and most advertising agencies spend decades trying to fabricate.
The campaign is titled "How To Make A Monster," a phrase that suggests both mechanical ambition and a certain self-awareness about the vehicle's oversized presence on American roads. Future spots, Ford says, will explore the engineering challenges involved in building a truck that performs on both asphalt and dirt.
Mr. Ford won his race in 1901. The company he founded is still running.
Original story published in MediaPost: "Ford Racing Launches 'How To Make A Monster' Campaign"