A man drinking an iced mint chip latte doesn’t seem particularly controversial, but it offends the Ford Motor Co. because its Ford F-Series trucks are for rugged men who must act the part or forfeit their right to drive the trucks.
That’s the message behind Fancy Coffee, one of two viral video ads playing at www.bftrules.com and YouTube. The video, which began playing on both sites on Dec. 20, had 657,953 views on YouTube as of yesterday.
The video spoofs the TV show Cops, as cops wearing BFT (“Built Ford Tough”) uniforms drive into a shopping mall and interrogate a Super Duty truck owner who walks out of a coffee shop with a tray of beverages. The cops let him go after he dumps his latte onto the pavement.
The video “helps change the conservative image of the trucks and makes them more fun,” said Brad Hensen, creative director at J. Walter Thompson/Detroit that created the video that was produced by Tool of North America/Santa Monica. CA. “It’s very different from TV advertising for the trucks, because we’re not selling features or benefits or even trying to get you to buy one,” he said. “It’s a viral video that’s trying to widen the scope.”
The goal is to appeal to a younger audience by making the truck “attractive, interesting, fun and different,” he said.
The video spoofs Cops by staging it in a California shopping mall that could be anywhere. “The show moves around the country and we’re trying to mimic that,” Hensen said. “When viewers come across it we want them to feel like they’re watching Cops, but if they look closely the infraction is absurd. It’s meant to creep up on you and take you by surprise.”
Erich Joiner, who directed the video for Tool, said he mimicked the show through the casting. “We wanted it to feel very real, so the cops and the truck owner were real people. I set up the basic scenario and told them the key points and they were able to improvise.”
Joiner said, “We researched how they shot the TV show and used the same type of video camera, the Sony DSR 570 DVcam. I put it on my shoulder and ran behind the actors like in the show.”
Joiner shot the video in Aug., 2006. “It took awhile to come to fruition because it’s very different from the way Ford advertises,” Hensen said. “Over time the power and value of being on the Net in a way that’s non-traditional became very evident and they were willing to say ‘Yes.'”
Hensen said Tool assisted them in the process by shooting the video on spec so JWT could show it to the client before it was sold.
The campaign includes another video, No Manicures, that takes place in a nail salon. A new video, No Pink Shirts, will begin playing Feb. 1.
Fancy Coffee has been promoted with a link on the YouTube home page. The bftrules url is posted after the video plays to drive viewers to the site.
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