Where are the Joneses? Ford

Challenge

Ford wanted to engage with people in a genuine way (rather than to just pitch sales messages) and so establish a closer connection between audience and brand.

Insight

Telling a story and inviting readers to contribute to it, can make them feel engaged, rather than “talked at”.

Solution

Ford of Europe were faced with declining audiences for their traditional marketing campaigns and were concerned that people were tuning out of messages they believed inconsequential to their busy lives.

We developed an interactive online comedy called “Where Are The Joneses?”, which followed the adventures of two characters, Dawn and Ian Jones, who were searching for siblings after learning that their father was a prolific sperm donor. Accompanied by a film crew, the crew improvised an episode a day on a 12-week European road-trip (in a car provided by Ford).

Each episode was shown on YouTube and discussed in an accompanying blog, featuring videos from viewers, images, diaries written by the characters and audience comments.

The blog allowed the audience to help shape the storyline, write the script, create new characters and even cast themselves to appear in the show. It was hosted on a free server, so Ford did not incur extra costs, and was distributed across social networking sites to maximise audience participation.

Results

Extensive coverage in mainstream media secured an important objective for Ford; the exercise was also seen as a rewarding articulation of the brand positioning "Feel the difference" and inspired Ford’s marketing department to look beyond traditional ways of working.

Where Are The Joneses? recorded:

• 141, 455 blog visits
• 15,367 wiki visits;
• 395, 457 total visits (all locations);
• The average time spent on the wiki was 15 minutes

The project also attracted a significant level of media interest, particularly in the UK national and trade press.