Creative Director’s Choice: Rob Lambrechts of Pereira O’Dell on Ford v Ferrari’s trailer
Creative Director’s Choice gives creative directors a chance to highlight the best work and spotlight campaigns that are making a difference.
Ford v Ferrari trailer
This week, Rob Lambrechts, chief creative officer at Pereira O’Dell, makes the case for the Oscar-nominated film Ford v Ferrari’s trailer being a high-quality ad.
The best ad I’ve seen in a while is something that the people involved vehemently deny being an ad at all.
Fine.
But everyone who's worked on an automotive account has seen the brief: ‘We want to highlight (insert car manufacturer here)’s racing heritage.’
Ford v Ferrari executes that brief better than anything I’ve ever seen. Every man, woman and child who saw the movie, the trailer or even just overheard a friend talking about it now knows that Ford built a badass racecar that beat Ferrari. But don’t worry, it’s not an ad.
Inspiring, interesting and compelling stories aren’t unique to the Ford Motor Company. Every brand has IP it can exploit.
But conventional wisdom says, ‘consumers will never watch something like that from a brand.’ Just like conventional wisdom argued that an American car company renowned for building sedans could build a race car that could take on Enzo Ferrari.
Creating these types of touchstones requires us as marketers to recalibrate our calculus. Traditionally, we’ve looked at ROI from one point of view. The brand spends money and gets a return on that investment. But in a world where audiences are becoming tougher and tougher to buy and consumers see their time as an investment, we need to think of ROI as a dual proposition. The brand gets a return, but the viewer gets a valuable experience for their time.
Is this easy? Absolutely not, but if Ford v Ferrari teaches us anything it’s that ambition, outsider thinking and craft can overcome the impossible.
Rob Lambrechts is chief creative officer at bicoastal creative agency Pereira O’Dell.
See the trailer by clicking on the Creative Works box below.
To see the latest creative ads and campaigns, visit The Drum’s Creative Works section. If you or your creative director would like to be featured in our Creative Director’s Choice, please contact Creative Works editor Kyle O’Brien.
