Ford F-150

For a couple of years now, Ford has switched its ad campaign for its F-150 trucks to a word based, fast paced kind of ad. Take a look at one of the many from last year.

As I mentioned above, Ford switched their campaign from the typical test based ad to this word based ad and I think that the change was a great idea. I am a fan of test based ads for how well they show the strength, speed, efficiency, etc of the product but at the same time they can be easily staged to get the desired results. Even if the results are not staged, the average person will question it which leads them to not looking in to the product more or ultimately buying it. This type of ad shows undisputed facts in a clean and interesting way.
I want to stress the word clean because when I watch one of these F-150 commercials I can easily read the text that is being displayed and I can also see what is going on with the truck all while listening to the narrator. I have seen too many commercials where the text is too small, too light of a color or is only presented for a short amount of time. If the creators put the text in the commercial, I, an average reader in terms of speed, should be able to read everything that is displayed (with exception to the fine print on the bottom of the screen).
The overall feel of the commercial is clearly geared towards men, which makes sense for a couple of reasons. The first being the product; trucks are thought of as tough and powerful just how the typical man is thought of so putting the two together is clearly the right move. Since men the ones buying the trucks, when this commercial comes up during a football game on Sunday when these men are not hard at work, it makes complete sense. Ford has found their target audience and has gone after them, which only adds to the quality of this commercial series.
On top of the timing, the content of the commercial makes this better than the rest. From the start they have gotten the viewers attention with a simple 'Hey', although it is simple, it works. From there the narrator offers up a quick joke about the kiddy menu to keep your attention on the commercial. Then they finalize their attempt at getting the viewers commercial with a fast paced graphic of an engine and the great features that this particular engine. Since the commercial has grabbed the viewer now, they don't have to keep going with the same speed, they can slow down and introduce 'less exciting' topic of the engineers who made the engine. Then it finishes off with a couple of quick facts that try to sell the deal.
Because of how well Ford used the 30 seconds they had, the timing of the actual commercial, and the quality that they made it I have to give this commercial an 8. It caught my attention and it kept my attention while selling their product. That is the sole purpose of a commercial and they hit the nail right on the head with this one. To be honest I haven't seen this commercial on Tv for a couple of weeks but since it was so rememberable I was able to think of it and use it for todays review. I can't give it a 9 or 10 because it didn't have that extra 'wow factor' that made me want to the see the commercial again and again. With that said, I wouldn't mind watching this commercial again and I would definitely choose watching this over a CouponSuzy.com commercial...
-Adam