Ford debuts new sales pitch during Thursday Night Football on Prime | Official Website of Louis Velazquez, entrepreneur, finance guy and tech innovator

Ford (F) has tried everything over the past eight months to move cars, and its strategies have mostly worked.

While tariffs are expected to eat about $2 billion from Ford’s profits this year, Ford has used multiple incentive programs to get buyers to its lots.

Earlier this year, Ford launched its “From America, For America” campaign to provide customers with employee pricing.

“Employee pricing for all was easy to understand and resonated with customers,” said Ford U.S. Sales Director Rob Kaffl.

Ford reported record-setting first half sales.

Image source&colon; Brown/AFP via Getty Images

Ford’s plan to boost sales through incentives pays dividends

Since then Ford has offered other incentives to U.S. buyers, including July 4 sales and a 0-0-0 financing deal.

Earlier this month, Ford started offering Labor Day deals in key regions through the end of September.

The strategy has worked, leading to a record-setting pace during the early part of the year.

“It’s really paid off for us in the last 60 days. You’ve seen a lot of the results in the market. Last month (May)…we actually posted a 14.7% share here in the U.S. That’s up 1.9 points of share on a year-over-year basis. A lot of times in this industry we fight for tenths of share, and to have a 1.9% increase year over year was very strong,” said Ford Blue and Model e President Andrew Frick.

Ford says its total sales rose in the second quarter at a rate about 7x that of the overall industry. The company says it was the top-selling brand in the U.S. during the first half of the year.

Now the company is leaning on the popularity of the NFL to help get its message out there and have a strong second half of the year.

Ford to debut ‘Ready. Set. Ford’ ad campaign during NFL Thursday Night Football on Prime

On Thursday, September 11, Ford will debut its new ad campaign “Ready. Set. Ford.” on Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime.

The ads, voiced by Bryan Cranston of “Breaking Bad” and “Malcolm in the Middle” fame, represent a shift in the company’s strategy.

While Cranston has been a longtime Ford collaborator, this ad is different because the campaign and tagline will be global instead of regional, as they have been in the past.

The new ad campaign will focus on consumers’ personal achievements, with Ford as the facilitator of those accomplishments.

“We want to bring more humanity into our work,” Lisa Materazzo, Ford’s global chief market officer, told AdAge. While consumers are “overwhelmed by the world now,” Materazzo said, “we know that in the midst of all of this, consumers are surprisingly resilient and optimistic, especially when they feel like they have tools that empower them.”

Ford partners with the NFL to spread its message

Meanwhile, if Ford wants to reach the widest audience, an NFL broadcast is the best place to do that.

Just last week, YouTube broadcast its first-ever live NFL game, setting the record for the most concurrent live stream viewers on the platform.

The broadcast drew a global average-minute audience of over 17.3 million, including 16.2 million in the U.S. and another 1.1 million internationally.

Every year, the list of the top 100 most-viewed shows is dominated by the NFL‘s Sunday afternoon, Sunday night, and Monday night broadcasts.

Over 70 of the top 100 most-viewed broadcasts last year were NFL games, including the perennial big-ticket winner, the Super Bowl.

More Ford news:

Last season’s Super Bowl averaged a record 127.7 million viewers, making it the most-watched Super Bowl and single-network telecast in history.

During the 2024-225 NFL season, the cost of a 30-second ad on Thursday Night Football on Prime Video cost nearly $563,000, according to eMarketer.