With a declining number of service visits per year due to increased quality and longer service intervals, coupled with ever-present competition from local garages and national auto service shops, Ford Motor Company was looking for a way to re-enforce to customers the value of dealership service.

The intention of this campaign was to affirm to consumers currently servicing at a dealership that Ford offers the best long term value, and to motivate consumers who had defected to another service provider to reconsider Genuine Ford Service. The specific objectives of the campaign were to increase affinity for Ford Service, and to improve the number of total service visits for maintenance and light repair items.

The campaign was created with the intent of educating consumers on the benefits of Ford service, and to plant doubt in the consumer’s mind about getting their Ford serviced without Genuine Ford parts, and Ford trained service experts. It also sought to challenge customer perceptions that dealerships are overpriced and don’t offer any consumer advantage over other service options.

The creative idea behind this campaign was ‘Beware Of Parts Unknown’, and dramatized the superiority of Ford parts, service and maintenance by showcasing all the things that could go wrong if owners opted to perform maintenance and repair using inferior quality parts and labour.

From an awareness standpoint, the goal of the campaign was to position Ford Parts And Service as the smartest – and only - choice for vehicle maintenance.

‘Avocado’ was the first radio spot that aired in this campaign and reinforced the importance of buying only Ford Motorcraft oil filters for your Ford as part of a larger maintenance package Ford offers called ‘The Works’. The overall campaign was also designed to sell Ford brake pads and tires, and included additional executions to meet those goals.

The sales objectives were :

- Increase Repair Order Counts (RO) by 2%.

- Increase overall maintenance and light repair sales by 6% YOY.

The communications objectives were increase YOY percentages of:

- Those familiar with Ford service.

- Favourable opinion of Ford Service.

- Consideration of Ford Service.

- Intention to service at Ford.

- Being the only place customers would choose to service their vehicles.

The awareness objectives and the sales objectives of this campaign for maintenance and light repair, filters, brake pad and tires exceed agency and client expectations alike.