TrustFord recruits staff to represent trust for new ad campaign
To mark the transition to its new customer facing brand, Ford Retail, the world’s largest dedicated Ford dealership group, has launched a major marketing campaign that includes online, print, outdoor and radio advertising, PR and social media engagement.
The new customer facing name, TrustFord, reflects the company’s philosophy of excellent customer service and transparency; traits that have always been at the very heart of the business and which have been instrumental in informing the new identity.
The TrustFord advertising campaign, created by branding agency Good,@thisisgoodnews which also handled the rebrand, features colleagues from the company’s national network of 65 dealership sites, including a Sales Executive, a General Manager and a Technician.
Two years of hard work is finally reality as TrustFord finally launches http://t.co/WeC0A9Q6g2
— Celia Pronto (@celiapronto) May 30, 2014
The images, taken in a reportage style, bring colleagues to the fore and show them at work, highlighting how they embody the company’s values of trust, honesty and transparency. The use of real staff, in friendly and natural situations, is designed to illustrate that nothing but the name has changed; TrustFord is all about its people and the key individuals who make up local dealerships will remain in the same roles under the new name. 
The rebrand, which has been in development for two years, is part of an ongoing strategy to ensure a consistent, industry-leading customer experience and offering across the entire Ford Retail group. Aligning the business’ regional dealerships under one nationally recognised brand name is one of the first steps, brought about following feedback from internal and external customer research. 
Celia Pronto, Group Marketing and E-commerce Director at TrustFord commented, “Our launch campaign is based on research that revealed our customers believe our people, our passion and our personal approach are what makes the difference to their experience; and gives them the trust they are looking for when buying and maintaining their vehicle.
The campaign focusses on our values as a company, and we believe they represent our personality of being friendly, natural and approachable. “Consolidating our customer facing brands under one name will enable key business functions, particularly marketing and communications, to run more efficiently. Having one brand instead of a number of different regional ones, will dramatically improve our ability to externally communicate key messaging, news and business developments on a national level.” 
Chris Lumsden, Founding Partner at Good commented, “Working closely with TrustFord, we recognised that the company values its employees highly and customers really trust them. This insight formed the basis of the entire rebrand. And what better way to explain how they make the company great than by making them the stars of the ads? We’ve used a wide section of real people from many areas of the business to convey the brand’s messages of trust.”
All media buying has been completed by MediaVest, whilst the communications element of the campaign has been managed by MediaVest, From 2nd June, the TrustFord identity will be rolled out across its network of 65 sites across the UK and Channel Islands, which previously operated under a variety of local brand names, including Bougourd Ford, Brunel Ford, Dagenham Motors, Heartlands Ford, La Motte Ford, Lindsay Ford, Polar Ford, @First Parts, Ford Retail Online and Ford Online Parts.
All of these brand names will now be branded as either TrustFord or TrustFirst Parts. Operating as one single brand will help give Fleet, Retail, Bodyshop, Parts, Aftersales and SME customers a better understanding of the scale of TrustFord’s services across the UK – from ensuring customers have the widest range of Ford vehicles available to them, wherever they are in the country, to making it easier to recognise a dealership – building further confidence in the organisation’s expertise.