MindShare
Ford
Mondeo

The Mondeo was the first car in Ford’s range to feature the brand new kinetic design, a new approach intended to appeal to customers who appreciate style and innovation.

With the emphasis firmly on showcasing the car’s looks, MindShare recognised that an ad of the highest visual quality was required. The agency’s response was to plan the UK’s first integrated HD campaign.

The campaign launched in the Champions League final between AC Milan and Liverpool, on ITV1, Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 1 HD. The 90-second HD ad featured in the first break during half time.

MindShare demonstrated considerable ingenuity to deliver the ad in HD – in order to overcome the problem of Sky’s ad servers not being capable of running HD transmissions, it had to “sew” the ad into the actual programme.

The picture quality of the HD format is four times better than standard television, meaning the agency could provide the highest-quality video footage of the Mondeo.

MindShare also arranged for Ford Mondeo to be the sole advertiser on Sky Anytime, the video-on-demand service available to Sky+ and HD customers. A one-minute ad was shown pre-roll and a two-minute version was available to view after the programme had ended.

This provided an excellent opportunity to showcase the Mondeo, as the 235,000 homes equipped with Sky HD are likely to be interested in new technology and fall within the Mondeo target audience. There were more than six million Sky Anytime views from June to mid-August.

MindShare also used interactive TV to promote the Mondeo. Red-button technology allowed viewers to order brochures and request test drives.

The interactive campaign delivered a 1.25% response rate, outperforming the average response rates in the motoring category, and generated more than 2,000 valuable sales leads.

As a result of the campaign, Ford’s tough June to December sales targets were exceeded by 16%, with a total of 25,911 vehicles sold.

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