When recently Ford unveiled “Ready Set Ford” at the Liwa International Festival, it wasn’t just launching a campaign — it was testing whether a global platform could be born from a regional insight. For Andrew Gregory, Marketing Director at Ford MENA, the shift from tagline to platform meant rewriting how briefs get written, how success gets measured, and how the brand talks to a customer who no longer moves in a straight line from awareness to showroom. Communicate sat down with Gregory to unpack what changes internally when a line becomes a lens — and what CMOs running legacy brands in the region can take from it.
Ford has run global platforms before, but RSF was unveiled specifically at a MENA product launch festival. What did the region get right (or rather the demand) that made this the place to debut it rather than adapt a global campaign?
The Middle East and North Africa is a diverse, highly connected region, and customers expect brands to understand how they live, work and travel. Simply translating a global asset or adapting it to a local format is not enough. Ready Set Ford gives us a stronger way to tell relevant stories in the region. It moves beyond traditional vehicle-led communication and places people, their ambitions and their experiences at the center of the work. The vehicle remains essential, but it is shown in the context of what it enables.
Introducing the platform at the Liwa International Festival was a deliberate choice. Liwa is an authentic setting that brings together adventure, capability and community, qualities that matter to many Ford customers in the region. It was the right place to show how a global platform can feel locally relevant, modern and human.
Moving from a tagline to a platform is a structural decision, not a creative one. What changes internally in how you brief agencies, measure success, or greenlight campaigns, especially now that RSF isn’t a line but a lens?
Treating Ready Set Ford as a platform changes how we work across the entire Marcoms ecosystem. It gives our teams, distributors and agency partners a shared foundation for how Ford shows up across channels, audiences and products.
That means briefs start with the customer and the role Ford can play in their lives, not simply the vehicle features we want to communicate. Our partners have clear guidance, tools and guardrails, while retaining flexibility to create work that is relevant to their local markets. We also assess work differently. Alongside product and campaign objectives, we look at whether the creative is building a clear, consistent Ford experience.
Success is measured through both brand and business outcomes: engagement and consideration, lead quality, customer experience, and, ultimately, sales.
Is RSF proof that MENA is now a platform originator for Ford globally, not just a market that localizes one?
Ready Set Ford is a global Ford platform. MENA didn’t create it, but the region demonstrates how a global platform can be brought to life with relevance and precision.
Our role is to apply the global strategic foundation in ways that reflect the realities of our markets—from language and cultural nuance to media behaviour, customer expectations and our distributor model. That includes adapting creative for Arabic-language formats and ensuring the experience is consistent across OEM and distributor touchpoints.
The strength of the platform is that it creates a recognizable Ford presence globally, while allowing markets to tell stories that feel genuine to their customers.
What’s one assumption about the MENA customer that Ford’s global marketing team had to unlearn to let RSF exist in its current form?
The key shift has been away from the idea that vehicle-first communication is always the most effective approach.
Customers still want clear information about capability, technology and ownership. But they also want to see how a vehicle fits into their lives. They research across multiple digital touchpoints, compare options carefully and look for confidence and reassurance throughout the journey.
Ready Set Ford responds to that by balancing product truth with more human storytelling. The customer is at the centre of the narrative, and the vehicle is the enabler, whether that is for work, performance, family life or adventure.
“Enabler of every journey” is a big promise. What’s the single proof point (a product, a service, a partnership) that customers will point to in 12 months and say, “that’s what they meant”?
The strongest proof point will be the full ownership experience. Ford should deliver from the first interaction through to driving, servicing and ongoing support.
We built Ready Set Ford around three distinct lifestyle territories, each backed by real capability:
- Build (The Doers):Anchored by our long-standing truck leadership and utility vehicles that are designed to show up in real life for everyday doers.
- Thrill (The Drivers):Driven by our Ford Racing DNA, be it at Formula 1 or Dakar.
- Adventure (The Explorers):Proven by our off-road lineup like Bronco and Ranger.
But the promise only becomes meaningful when it is supported by a dependable customer experience. If ownership and service feel straightforward, responsive and consistent, that is when customers will see what “enabler of every journey” means.
AI, retail media, and shoppable content are rewriting how automotive brands reach buyers before they ever set foot in a showroom. Where does RSF live in that funnel: is it a brand platform built for the old journey or the new one?
Ready Set Ford is designed for today’s non-linear customer journey.
Customers move between search, social platforms, video, reviews, dealer websites, retail environments and conversations with friends and family. They do not experience Ford in a straight line, so our communications cannot operate in one either.
The platform creates a consistent thread across the journey. It can build emotional connection and awareness early on, then support consideration with relevant product and capability content, and reinforce confidence through CRM, retailer communications and showroom experience.
It allows us to move quickly in digital channels while maintaining a clear, recognizable Ford brand.
What’s the CMO lesson from this launch that you’d pass on to a peer running a legacy brand in the region?
Strategic clarity and alignment. A strong platform is not just a creative idea, it is a shared way of working.
In a complex ecosystem that includes global and regional teams, distributors, and agency partners, consistency does not come from controlling every execution. It comes from giving people a clear strategy, practical tools and the confidence to make decisions within the right guardrails.
The goal is to tell one Ford story in ways that are relevant to different markets and audiences. When everyone understands the role of the brand and the customer is kept at the center, the work becomes more consistent, more effective and more useful.
