Ford wanted to create a print ad for its iconic Mustang in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. As we concepted ideas, we began to ask ourselves how we could extend the print execution. One of the ideas featured a cropped-out model next to a Mustang. We named the model after the art director’s wife, then joked that thousands of red-blooded males would be looking at his wife’s Facebook profile after googling her in a couple of weeks. That’s when we realized we could extend the ad by creating a portfolio website for our model.

We gave the model a new name, Dalena Henriques, to ensure that when people inevitably googled the name the only thing they’d find was our website. Then, we created a portfolio website for her, showing more pictures of her and the Mustang without ever showing her face.

Within 48 hours after the SI Swimsuit Issue hit newsstands, dalenahenriques.com had over 40,000 unique visitors. Over 100 articles were written about the campaigns. People talked about Dalena Henriques on Facebook, Twitter and on countless message boards. One person even hacked the microsite trying to find a picture of Dalena Henriques’ face. The Dalena Henriques campaign was suppose to be a one-off ad in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, but due to popular demand she was chosen to be included on the annual Maxim Hot 100 list.

The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition and the Dalena Henriques microsite launched on the same day. The Mustang ad inside ran with the headline “Dalena Henriques and the all-new 2013 Ford Mustang,” with no reference to the modeling website. Within a couple hours of the magazine’s release, the website was discovered. People then tweeted, blogged and wrote news articles about it, sharing the ad and the digital campaign with others who may not have seen the work otherwise.