The Challenge

We were tasked with telling the story of Ford’s Farm to Car initiative to a wide variety of audiences on a local scale, from the international attendees at the 2016 Alltech ONE Idea Festival to children at the Living Arts and Science Center. We needed to take the wide-ranging Farm to Car initiative, which spanned the fields of agriculture, technology, and the future of the automotive industry, and tell its story in a way was interesting, memorable, and easy to understand.

The Goal

Create a variety of multimedia sensory experiences that would showcase how Ford is growing the next generation of sustainable vehicles.

The Plan

We started with research, as we always do. Our team traveled to Ford headquarters in Detroit to learn about Ford’s sustainability initiatives firsthand, from the scientists developing them. Then we designed a massive exhibit for the Alltech ONE Ideas Festival, planning traffic patterns and designing and printing 16-foot-tall towers and 45-foot-long walls, creating and installing vehicle wraps and building customized interactive displays. We also hacked apart a car seat, created a life-size Henry Ford standee, built fences, grew bamboo, printed totes, printed shirts, printed brochures, printed magnets, and hauled in a truckload of straw to create an experience that felt like a farm and acted like a classroom. You can explore a 360-degree scan of the exhibit at bit.do/farmtocar.

It would be a shame if the exhibit didn’t live on after the conference, so we adapted it a smaller audience: kids of all ages at the Living Arts & Science Center. We converted our soy-foam seat display into a rolling learning center where kids could read, poke, and plant their way to some scientific knowledge. The display features a real Ford car seat filled with real Ford soy foam; space for giveaways including magnets and handouts; and a three-bucket planting station where kids can plant their own soybeans, just like Ford. After completing the design and build of the learning center, our client asked us to present the display and the Farm to Car initiative on their behalf at the LASC’s monthly Discovery Night. We were able to pass on Ford’s sustainability work to a new generation in a fun, fact-filled, kid-friendly way.

The Result

The Farm to Car experience saw thousands of visitors during the course of the ONE Festival, including none other than Alan Mulally, former President and CEO of Ford Motor Company. He loved it, praised it, and even told Bill Ford (current executive chairman of Ford) about it. On top of that, the project won a Gold ADDY at the 2017 AAF Lexington ADDY Awards.