Television viewers have watched people win a million dollars on TV, and have watched couples get married on TV. Now, Ford is taking the reality television craze to a new level by allowing people to vote on the Internet on how the latest series of live Ford Focus spots should unfold.
Last fall, Ford Motor Co. and agency J. Walter Thompson, Detroit (JWT) launched an innovative campaign of Ford Focus spots shot live on video (SHOOT, 8/27/99, p. 7). Three initial ads, directed by Peter Kagan of Santa Monica-based Stiefel & Company, debuted during the MTV Video Music Awards on Sept. 9, ’99. Featuring Annabelle Gurwitch (co-host of TBS Superstation show Dinner & A Movie), the spots ushered an innovative approach to car advertising.
It was an epic project. Kagan recounted that they ended up with around 30 different scripts, each of which they shot twice: once for transmission to the East Coast, and the second time to air live on the West Coast. But the scripted spots—written largely by Gurwitch and by JWT executive VP/executive creative director Bruce Rooke—were criticized for not seeming to be live. As Kagan noted, the problem is that live spots don’t lend themselves to spontaneity, given the limitations of the FCC restrictions and network standards and practices.
"We tried to make the execution of those approved scripts as fluid and risky as we could, without betraying the trust the network had in us to deliver something that wouldn’t get them in trouble with the FCC," Kagan said. "We built glitches into the transmission, we created opportunities for mistakes and we used dogs, live. There was every opportunity for us to stumble. And we tried to create scenarios by which we could still act spontaneously and create unexpected things, but still not have expletives or any of the thousands of words that would have been unacceptable to the network."
For this go-round, Ford and JWT—while continuing with live shooting—have made the element of interactivity the campaign’s linchpin. The new Focus spots are intended
to be shaped by the participation of viewers, who register their choices on the vehicle’s Web site at www. Focus247.com. In case the thrill of seeing your contributions on national television isn’t enough, Ford is providing financial incentives for viewers to log on by awarding points for sweepstakes prizes, ranging from a Sony Walkman to a Ford Focus.
According to Rooke, they had experimented with interactivity during the last campaign. One spot had Gurwitch preparing to pick up singer Ricky Martin after a concert. She held up two outfits, and asked viewers to go to the Focus Web site (which displayed pictures of Gurwitch wearing each getup) and choose which one she should wear. The flood of responses amazed everyone.
"We had the Web site set up in a truck on the set," said Kagan. "People actually cared enough to participate in this rather inconsequential decision. People in charge of the Web site were screaming ‘7,000 people voted!’ And then, ‘10,000 people voted!’ We realized we were getting a spontaneous reaction. The live-ness that we were offering became spontaneous by virtue of the audience’s participation. That was what spurred us on."
"People seemed hungry to control things. So we decided to use [shooting] live as the means to a much bigger idea [of interactivity], where people give us input as to how the spots should go," Rooke said. "This was opposed to shooting live as a means to an end, where the only expectations people can have when something is live is, ‘Let’s watch to see someone screw up.’"
At press time, the initial four live Focus spots were set to air earlier this week (3/8) on ABC during Two Guys and a Girl, The Norm Show, The Drew Carey Show and 20/20. Prior to that evening, people can log on to the Web site to make some broad choices—for instance, which of the five actors (who will replace Gurwitch) will appear onscreen and which Ford Focus model (coupe, sedan or station wagon) will be featured. They can also pick one of three spot scenarios: a guy practicing dancing in his garage in anticipation of a big date, a guy creating a dot-com startup in his garage, or an actor who’s been banished to the garage with his pet because his landlord doesn’t allow dogs.
Kagan explained that scripts will be written for all those contingencies. "We know that we’re going to be in a garage, so we’ll have it contained to that degree," he said. After the first spot airs, viewers will be asked to go to the Internet to vote on elements for subsequent spots to air that night (for instance, multiple choice answers allow people to select names of dances or dot.com companies). Viewers will also be asked for their suggestions as to what an actor would say in a certain scenario.
"I think this is going to be a lot more manic and a lot more fun to react to people’s decisions," said Rooke, who promises some "surprises and tricks" along the way. As the first three spots of the evening are to air a half-hour apart, there will be 15 minutes allotted for viewers to vote, five minutes to tally the votes, and 10 minutes for them to react before the next spot airs live.
One difference from the last Focus campaign is that the ads will be written by two Hollywood-based scriptwriters, Greg Rice and Karen Ann Thumm. Rooke said they brought in the two twenty-something writers "so we can make sure that the characters in the scripts sound like real people." With Rice’s specialty in jokewriting and timing and Thumm’s expertise in characterization, Rooke hopes their collaborative efforts will result in hip but realistic scripts that appeal to Focus’ youthful (age 35 and under) target audience.
Ford is slated to air four live spots during each of four nights: March 8, March 15, March 23 and April 5. And like the last Focus ad series, they will be shooting two versions of each spot for the East and West Coasts, for a total of eight live spots a night. Thus, East Coast viewers may end up electing different choices than the West Coast audiences, which Rooke views as a sociological experiment of sorts.
"A big part of the reason for this [interactive campaign] is to mimic a natural loop for our buyers; a group that’s very Web-savvy," Rooke said. "They want convergence to happen before it can happen. That’s why we really wanted to experiment with true, real-time convergence before the year 2005—which is when people are saying television and computers will become one. But it will happen, and we’re using what technology exists now to give people the opportunity to live it today."
