Ford Changes Its Advertising Strategy: What It Means to Be American.

According to Vox: Every product has its own story. The story that Ford tells is that their cars symbolize America.

Ford positions itself as the most American car manufacturer. They started making their cars in America when Henry Ford introduced assembly line production for the Model T in 1913. It is so firmly associated with American identity that the Japanese Prime Minister recently parked a Ford F-150 before a meeting with President Donald Trump to emphasize his sympathy. ('That's a cool truck,' noted Trump.)

The myth that Ford creates is so powerful that it has even influenced the narratives of economic policy. Part of the subtext of the Trump tariffs was that they were supposed to bring back the America that existed in the glorious times of Ford, where strong men worked in reliable factories and could feed their families. (Ford CEO Jim Farley noted that the tariffs would actually increase Ford's production costs.)

But the America that Ford represents has changed over time. Today, in Ford's commercials, America is willing to pay to believe in itself amidst strong discomfort about its own identity.

'Opening Highways for All Mankind'

One of Ford's most famous early advertisements was presented in 1924. As Model T sales declined, Ford decided to revive the market by releasing a series of luxurious oil paintings depicting the vast infrastructure being built: their factories, forges, worker benefits. They wanted to show America that Ford was not just a manufacturer of affordable cars, but the creator of Fordism: a new capitalist and consumerist way of life unique to America.

This campaign failed, and Model T sales continued to drop, but one of the advertisements from this time was so optimistic and romantic that Ford re-released it in 2013 during an attempt to revive the Lincoln Town Car brand, making it the centerpiece of the rebranding campaign.

'Opening highways for all mankind,' said the new advertisement, over an image of a nuclear family getting out of their Model T to admire the western horizon. 'The essence of all activities of the Ford Motor Company is the universal idea – a sincere belief that traveling on highways should be accessible to all.'

This ad text reflects a population striving for democratic ideals. Travel should be accessible to the middle class, not a privilege of the wealthy. Taxpayer money was spent on building highways, so taxpayers should also have the right to use them. That was the American Dream.

The advertisement also shows how America is not. America is a country where people travel with their families and do not crowd together on trains, as in Europe. It is a country where the social unit is the nuclear family – mother, father, and two children – and not integration groups or other familial ties. It is a country that belongs to white, heterosexual members of the middle class.

Most importantly, Ford's early advertising shows the company and the country looking to the future. Ford is actively opening new highways – new roads that Congress just legislated three years ago. America was unfolding, stepping into the American century, and Ford was part of that process. The future was bright and belonged to both America and Ford.

'Making History Again'

In the optimistic, cosmopolitan era of Obama, Ford presented America on the rise once again. 'What Comes Next?' asked the 2015 ad, quickly answering itself: 'Things You Never Expected.'

In this utopian world, everyone had access to the courage of the Ford Mustang – including women. An advertisement from 2013 stated that 'everyone has their inner Mustang' as a little girl in pink tulle eagerly stared at a black Mustang.

Another ad from 2015 featured a stylishly dressed woman of ethnicity confidently driving through the city, accompanied by the song 'Fight Song' by Rachel Platten. This advertisement aired before Hillary Clinton selected this song for her presidential campaign. But it expresses a nation where feminism has become so popular that it can be used to sell cars, and there is the notion that the next president of America will undoubtedly be a woman.

'We Don’t Get Anything for Free'

Modern Ford advertising excludes no one. Short TV commercials clearly show that they are pleased to accept money from Black women, Black men, Latinos, and liberal women in general. Nevertheless, the emphasis in Ford's contemporary advertisements largely reflects cultural wars that predominantly lean to the right.

There is Ford advertising that talks about how the modern world and its luxurious cities distract us from the beauty of rural living, but Ford can reconnect us. There is advertising that compares 'feminized' office work to the honest labor of their customers. There is even a five-minute documentary from Ford about the creation of the Truckle – a cowboy belt, 'handcrafted by Ford truck owners, a rodeo legend, and a belt master, Andy Andrews' – designed not only to keep your pants up but also to hold the key to your Ford F-150.

However, the most striking feature of this moment in Ford's iconography is a sense of defensiveness and even anger. An advertisement from 2024 created for the Detroit Lions' entrance into Ford Field for the NFC Championship Game highlights the resilience of Detroit brands. 'Here in the North, we don’t have the luxury of just entering a winning season,' the voice of actor Jeff Daniels speaks off-screen. 'We don’t get easy victories. Nothing is given to us. We have to reach, grab, and fight, because there are no shortcuts here.'

On one level, this language is a celebration of a football team from one embattled city to the next. But on the other, it reflects the sense of outrage that marks the Trump era: 'Everything I was promised has been taken from me, I was given nothing, and I had to fight for all my accomplishments.'

This story of outrage is what sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild calls a 'deep story'... a story in which you lay down facts and moral judgments and simply find the narrative that seems true. In 2011, as she tried to understand how what was then called the Tea Party emerged, Hochschild visited a conservative region in Louisiana to understand the deep story that people there tell. In 2016, she summarized her observations:

'Imagine the people standing in a long line that goes up the hill. And at the very top of this line stands the American Dream. And the people in line feel that they have worked exceptionally hard, sacrificed a lot, tried everything, and are waiting for what they deserve. And this line is increasingly not moving at all or moving slower [i.e., as the economy ground to a halt].

Then they see others passing them in line: immigrants, Blacks, women, refugees, public sector workers. And even an oil-splattered pelican gets priority. To them, it seems that these people are ahead of them in line unfairly. And in this narrative, there is Barack Obama standing off to the side, the overseer of the line, who seems to be waving to those people (and to the pelican). So it seemed the government was supporting those who stood nearer the front of the line while pushing those in line back.

Since Trump took office, Hochschild's 'deep story' has increasingly inspired conservative rhetoric, regardless of its connection to reality. This explains Trump's fixation on the idea that he is self-made and his obsession with the elites who, they believe, have not worked as hard as they have and who they still despise. The resentment, which undoubtedly leads to prejudice against immigrants, is seen as the solution to all problems. All of these ideas, although not truthful, seem to be credible for the political movement.

When Ford offers the idea that their cars are America itself, then America that Ford represents today is no longer the symbol of industrial power. It is a country that is isolated, self-involved, self-hating, and outraged. It is a country that is not ready to buy optimism.