FordChat

It all started when...

Flying above the Atlantic Ocean on our way to shoot our first VR film... A email came in from our then CCO - Toby Barlow  - with a photo from a wall at GTB Singapore . It look like Tinder for cars... The note was simple ..."Build this"

So as soon as we landed, I got to work contacting my designer and devs back  in Detroit and Within 2 week, we had a working (clickable PDF) prototype of a quirky Tinder like product for shopping for cars called FordMatch. 

People were intrigued and the product started to grow... it was also on this same plane ride that I used KLM's ChatBot for the first time. I had experimented with chat bots in the past - even built Ford a rudimentary one called LotBot that helped you avoid dealers. 

As the Tinder-inspired FordMatch marched up the agency & client ladder it started to stall. Seemed like it needed more. - It also needed a home - enter Facebook Messenger. 

Meshing the worlds of Tinder and Messenger became a now brainer - and within a month we had the UX of what would become FordChat  - a fun, witty messenger bot that allowed you to shop for cars in a whole new way. 

The bot is now live (for select cities - Atlanta, Cincy & Seattle) - hoping to roll out to the US this summer. 

... Because it was a new way to shop - we also needed a new way to advertise. 

Breaking all type of Ford rules.. (and eventually Facebook's own brand police) - we made a series (30 !) of short quirky ads that hooked people in to try a new way of car shopping. 

CREDITS:

Agency: GTB (Team Detroit) 

Production Co.:  Ghost Robot  (dir. Ben Dickenson) 

Color:  The Mill 

Sound/Mix : One Thousand Birds

Music: Future Perfect