Between 2015 and 2018 I creatively led all global Ford auto show stand content and messaging for Imagination Shanghai (China and India).
The Ford team in China were some of my favourite clients to date, the mutual level of trust and respect we shared led to some kick-arse work. There are far too many people to list who contributed to this work, but projects of this size and scale are always a collective effort.
Ford Shanghai Auto Show 2017
This was the start of a new stand architecture, and we packed it to the brim with engaging experiences to communicate the global Ford brand values and products as well as a heavy emphasis on localised content specifically for the China market.
To bridge the physical experience with the digital, I led the creation of a digital infrastructure which leveraged WeChat to provide a complementary repository of consumer facing content, souvenirs and to enhance lead generation.
Role
Strategy, creative direction (content and digital)
Agency
Imagination Shanghai
A guest using ‘the Force’ to sense the selfie opportunity
WeChat is a fantastic platform for friction-less physical/digital engagement, at near a billion account holders in China it has standardised the QR code as a convenient method of data exhange
This very cool piece we developed from the outset to be social, each participant could see an avatar of the people around them. The end of the experience climaxed with a virtual confetti gun showdown (no, really)
The 2017 Shanghai stand utilised three asynchronous VR platforms
VR had become commonplace in the auto show environment, and by and large it was pretty gimmicky with low throughput. To spin this on it’s head and provide a high capacity, true-to-life driving experience we designed and built 9 motion controlled platforms to simultaneously seat 36 guests.
The centrepiece motion control SUV VR experience was one of three bespoke VR activations created for SHAS 2017
100m of high resolution LED
Our new Ford stand architecture incorporated a ‘halo’ design which brought the Ford oval to life with an attention grabbing stamped aluminium face. Once inside the stand, guests were transported from the visual clutter of adjacent brands by virtue of the flexible LED canvas which featured over an hour of bespoke content, the majority produced in-house.
Results
Independent research rated the 2017 Ford Shanghai stand as the third ‘Most Impressive’ behind only BMW and Audi. Furthermore, it scored twice as high as it’s nearest non-luxury competitor in-market, Volkswagen.
Personally, I hit gold membership at Starbucks in a suspicious coincidence with the exhaustive period just before the show. Sadly, I hate Starbucks - but coffee out near Hongqiao was pretty hard to come by at the time.
