• by Danielle Oster , Yesterday

Ford partnered with experience design agency Imagination for a “Ford Building Together” initiative that kicked off with “The World’s Largest Auto Dealer-Led Food Drive.”

“Ford Building Together” grew out of a collaboration that began in 2024 connecting its 9,000 dealers globally with local nonprofit organizations.

A promotional video highlighted partners including American Red Cross, Feeding America, Habitat For Humanity, and Team Rubicon.

Running across 31 countries, the drive collected more than two million pounds of food and essential supplies donations.

“Our dealers have always been at the heart of their communities,”  Caroline Pernot, director of global dealer community engagement at Ford Motor Company, said in a statement. “Ford Building Together gives them new opportunities to make a tangible difference, and this campaign is just the beginning.”

Ford partnered with Imagination on strategic development, campaign creation, and global coordination for the food drive, tasked with ensuring the message reached audiences worldwide. The agency’s offices in Detroit, Sydney, Melbourne, and London also delivered donations to local Ford dealerships for the initiative.

The agency worked “to empower local dealers to promote the Global Food Drive within their own communities (and for them to get the credit for their efforts), so we worked closely with field teams around the world as well as our partner agency WPP to arm dealers with assets to do their own promotion,” an Imagination rep told Marketing Daily.

“In addition to a playbook outlining the purpose and vision of the campaign, dealers were also given digital assets for social media promotion, media guidelines for engaging local press, and the option to order physical signage they could use in their showroom or donation collection site.

“The messaging and visuals for the campaign were united around the world  but dealers had the freedom to promote it in their own way, along with selecting a recipient organization of choice to receive the food donations at the end of the campaign."