Ford Hits the Road to Return Rockers to the Stage

To demonstrate the ultra-connected Ford EcoSport SUV, equipped with SYNC AppLink that allows apps on phones to be controlled through voice commands in the car, Ford commissioned a pre-launch campaign that sent Renaud Letang and Cédric Couvez on a road trip to reconnect four musicians with the stage. The aim of the project was to promote the new vehicle and reach a new and younger audience.

Created by Blue Hive Paris; an Ogilvy, Wunderman and Mindshare joint-venture company, the project was to challenge music producer Renaud Letang and music journalist Cédric Couvez to find four musicians who left famous bands before they hit the big time, persuade the musicians to form a new band, record a track and play a gig. They had two months to achieve all of this.

Letang and Couvez recruited Henry Padovani, founding guitarist of The Police; Roya Arab, original singer of Archive; Dick Taylor, original bassist of The Rolling Stones and Kathy Mendonça, original drummer of The Gossip.

The campaign took full advantage of social media with Couvez sharing thoughts and photos with the audience every step of the way and encouraging the audience to do the same and each video being complemented with posts, tweets and bonus footage.

A list of episodes can be seen below, with new episodes released each week.

Episode 1: The guitarist

Episode 2: The voice

Episode 3: The bassist

Episode 4: The drummer

Episode 5: The rehearsal

Episode 6: Promotion of the concert (24^th March)

Episode 7: The concert (31^st March)

Episode 8: The Best-of video (6^th April)