Ford Fiesta targets young urbanites in its new ‘Awks’ campaign created by JWT Melbourne
Everyday awkward situations or ‘Awks’, as nicknamed by JWT Melbourne, are central to the latest campaign the agency has developed for the new Ford Fiesta hatchback.
Think about that awkward friend invite on Facebook; bumping into a clingy ex-boyfriend; or the early morning boot camp session that demands too many push-ups… all examples of Awks.
The campaign positions the Fiesta as the ultimate escape hatch. Its rallying cry – ‘Get the Fiesta Out of There’ – targets young urbanites aged 18-25.
To bring the annoying Awks to life, JWT enlisted the help of award-winning illustrator, James Gulliver Hancock. And they were unavoidable, springing up across inner city metrolites and billboards in Eastern States with one awkwardly placed across the road from Flinders St Station in Melbourne.
Radio executions have also been launched running across the Today and Triple M networks, running until the end of December.
Also in a first for Ford, Fiesta partnered with music video site Vevo, creating pre-rolls featuring young up and coming artists ‘Getting the Fiesta’ away from the Awks in their life. It culminated in two exclusive Fiesta concerts at Melbourne’s HiFi and Kelvin Clubs; the first showcasing Tonight Alive, and the second held this week for artist Gossling.
Says Richard Muntz, JWT Melbourne’s ECD: “This is a really confident campaign platform that builds an identity for Ford’s smallest of small-car nameplates.”
ECD: Richard Muntz
Art Director: Chris Hince
Writer: Andy Segal
Illustrator: James Gulliver Hancock
Account Director: David Noonan
Client: Glen Hobbs
Production: Front of House
Media: Mindshare
10 Comments
Did the budget get cut halfway through the project?
Or was the art direction simply done by the client?
I’m not familiar with the type of thing I’m seeing.
New Ford Fiesta – drive away from $14,990.
How many 18 year olds can afford a $15k car?
Achieves the rare double of being both indecipherable and cringeworthy.
Most of us would agree these are different for the category. As an industry shouldn’t we be celebrating that instead of scorning it? After all, who wants their clients reading CB to think, even for a second, that doing something different will result in being mocked?
And Old CD Guy, the fact that you felt compelled to include ‘CD’ in an otherwise anonymous title paints a sad picture of someone with pathetically low self-worth. Go win an award or something man, I feel sorry for you.
‘Most of us would agree these are different for the category’…ummm, they are crap.
Old CD sums it up…and BTW, clients don’t read this blog.
They’re different alright
In the same way that Movie 43 is ‘different’
no client should be scared of doing something different, but every client should be scared of doing something dire
but cheap, undercooked rubbish should never be held up as any kind of standard.
I saw these around a few weeks ago and thought they were kind of nice. Nothing that’ll trouble a Cannes jury, sure, but at least a little bit new for Ford. And they got a real human insight in there too, not just bullshit car ad cliches. Might not be good, but for goddsake, not that bad either.
@Tristan dear boy, my epithet was given to me by CB bloggers as a result of carefully considered comments I posted some years ago in the heated debate on the ill-fated Carlton Draught Tingle campaign. It was and is relevant then because I spoke/speak from extensive experience, including as a Creative Director. I won heaps of awards both locally and internationally, I don’t have low self-esteem (in fact I’ve often been accused, quite rightly, of unbearable arrogance), and I now view the work with the unbiased eye of someone with no vested interests or scores to settle. Yes, we should always encourage ‘different’, and I often suffered the slings and arrows of criticism that my work frequently suffered from that very sin. Eventually I could take it no more and took my bat & ball and went home. The work on display here is certainly different, but if makes little or no sense to anyone other than the coke or crack-crazed, what good is it?