Race My Message
- Brand
- Ford
- Year
- 2013
- Objective
- Awareness
- Industry
- Automotive
- Mechanic
- Racing & Sports
- Platform
- Social
- Agency
- UNIT9
- With
- GTB
Objective
Ford wanted to put its new Focus ST in front of drivers who cared about hot hatches, using the way people already messaged friends on Facebook as the delivery mechanism. Rather than just posting an ad, the campaign turned a personal note into something a friend was compelled to play through, so every message doubled as an invitation into the brand's game.
Solution
The player types a short personal message, under 35 characters, and picks a colour for their Ford Focus ST. The game instantly turns that text into a 3D track, with each letter shaping a bend or straight, and drops the player into the driver's seat: arrow keys steer and control speed, the spacebar brakes, and the car tops out around 90 mph. Tight corners are lined with blue crystals worth collecting for a spot on the global leaderboard. Once the run is done, the track is saved to a personal library and can be sent to a friend on Facebook as a coded link — the friend plays the same track to decode and reveal the original message.
- 1
The player opens Ford's Race My Message app inside Facebook, which invites them to turn a message to a friend into a racetrack.
- 2
The player types a personal message of up to 35 characters, using no numbers or punctuation; this text is both the note the friend will receive and the raw material for the track.
- 3
The player picks the color of their Ford Focus ST from a six-color palette that includes the signature Tangerine Scream.
- 4
The game converts the message into a personalized 3D racetrack, with the track's layout tracing the shape of the written text against a plain backdrop that sets off the car.
- 5
The player drives the track using the keyboard: arrow keys steer and control speed, the spacebar brakes, and the car runs at roughly 90 mph while the player grabs blue crystals placed on the tightest turns to boost their result.
- 6
On finishing, the player's time and crystal haul are posted to a global leaderboard showing their ranking against other players.
- 7
The finished track is stored in the player's personal "My Tracks" library as an encoded track file, with the original message kept hidden inside it.
- 8
The player shares the track with a friend on Facebook; the friend must race it to decode the hidden message, and can then build and send back a track of their own.
