Truck Ads on TikTok? Inside Ford Maverick’s Hot AR TikTok Campaign

This past summer, the Ford Maverick went places where few trucks have gone before: a tray of crudites, an apartment roof, a laundry room counter. It even found itself as the object of desire for an eager Yorkie. The secret sauce? Augmented reality and TikTok, which helped a new Ford pickup truck defy the laws of physics and enter social media virality. Ford, too, was out of its element with the campaign, which let TikTok users shrink and expand an augmented reality version of the Maverick truck to add a sticker to their videos. This was the auto giant’s first paid social effort on TikTok, said Erica Martin, Ford Truck marketing communications manager. Ford wanted to market the Maverick to people who wouldn’t normally consider buying a pickup truck, and TikTok’s young and diverse audience was the perfect demographic, Martin said. “We know they’re not traditional truck people. We didn’t want to go to market like we did with other trucks,” she said. “TikTok is the last place you’d expect to see a truck ad.” The bet paid off. The campaign, which Ford launched in June with the help of Wieden+Kennedy, generated over 10.6 billion views and garnered over 17,000 video creations in less than a month, according to TikTok. It was featured by TikTok in a blog post highlighting the platform’s most significant brand moments in 2021. Advertiser interest in AR has been bubbling away for years, spurred by improved tech and platform features. This market is only anticipated to grow further, with global mobile AR revenue from advertising expected to balloon to $26.05 billion in 2025, compared to $6.87 billion in 2020, according to research firm ARtillery intelligence. TikTok is starting to make the technology more prevalent on its app. This past summer, it launched a toolset in private beta mode which lets select developers build AR effects specifically for TikTok. By then, Snap and Meta already had more advanced AR development efforts underway. Aiming for more than virality, the campaign accomplished its goal of raising brand awareness, said Geoff Scoones, comms strategy director at Wieden+Kennedy. According to post-campaign research conducted by consultancy Kantar, aided awareness, which compares brand awareness between a group who's seen the ad and a control group, was 490% above Kantar's norm of 3% for traditional mobile advertising, Scoones said. AR fits with TikTok's DIY ethos The augmented reality feature serves two important functions for the campaign, Scoones said. First, it allows the audience to better experience the product. “AR lets people experience your products, knowing these younger audiences might not want to go into a dealership and see this product in its physical form," he said. Second, the customizability of the graphic fits well with the creator-driven, do-it-yourself ethos of TikTok. Ford partnered with several influencers, including Jamie Milne, whose TikTok videos focus on recipes. In this instance, Milne's videos show the truck scaled down to fit on a kitchen counter. In a video with DIY-focused creator Chloe Mitchell, the truck was sized to fit next to a shed, one of her current projects. TikTok’s culture matches the goal of the campaign, which aims to show how a pickup like the Ford Maverick could fit into any lifestyle, not just that of a typical truck owner. “It helps guide our messaging,” Scoones said. There are two particularly powerful use cases for AR in advertising, said Evan Gappelberg, CEO of NexTech AR solutions, which offers augmented reality solutions. The first allows customers to see and try on the product to inform purchasing decisions. The second introduces an element of fun that can help consumers connect with the brand. How a brand utilizes AR depends on the platform the brand is using, he added. On Shopify, a brand would be best served to stick to the first use case. But on TikTok, fun is the currency, and Ford’s use of AR spoke to TikTok’s language, Gappelberg said. “They dropped a 3D model of a car, which is not that fun, into an environment of people having fun and being creative, and that’s TikTok.” Gappelberg said. “If you had dropped that same 3D model onto a website, it wouldn’t have matched up with the audience.” Ford’s Underwater Dance Is a Surprisingly Elegant Ad for a Pickup Truck