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Sc. 17 · F-150 Lightning
A Ford F-150 Lightning drives under a bridge at night.
← All work17 · Automotive · 2022

F-150
Lightning

What can the truck do, and how do you reserve one? Launch copy that connected the features to those practical questions.

200K+
Reservations before ordering opened
Client
Ford
Role
Launch copy and reservation-funnel strategy
Discipline
Launch copy and the path to a reservation
Year
2022
Sc. 17A · The briefThe job first, the battery later
The idea
Could it still do truck work?

I worked on product copy and the pages leading to a reservation. Power, storage, towing, and charging needed to be explained through the ways owners and commercial buyers would use the truck.

The writing gave people enough information to picture using the truck and decide what they wanted to know next.

I wrote and sequenced the route from social or video to reservation. The copy led with useful specifics, including the Mega Power Frunk and Intelligent Backup Power, and connected them to the ways owners and commercial buyers would use the truck.

“
// Demand came fast

Nearly three in four reservation holders were new to Ford

Ford reported 44,000 reservations in the first two days and more than 200,000 before ordering opened. Nearly three in four reservation holders were new to Ford. The copy introduced the truck’s uses without assuming familiarity with its electric features.

Sc. 17B · The workLaunch copy · Reservation path · Owner education

Truck work
comes first

Each feature met the reader in terms of their own work, and the reservation step stayed one screen away.

Lead with the job

Storage · Power · Work
An F-150 Lightning at a campsite with its front trunk open
01Mega Power Frunk

Storage you can picture.

A named feature is easier to understand when someone can picture the job it does.

Owner use
An F-150 Lightning powering a backyard setup from its tailgate
02Intelligent Backup Power

Power for an ordinary Tuesday.

Power, tied to the ways owners and commercial buyers would use the truck.

Owner use
A charging unit in the bed of an F-150 Lightning Pro
03Commercial buyers

Their own working day.

Storage and power mattered to commercial buyers for different reasons, inside different working days.

Commercial use
An F-150 Lightning with its Mega Power Frunk open and loaded
An F-150 Lightning Platinum on the road
01Buyers

Different buyers needed different information

Owners and commercial buyers had different reasons to care about storage and power. I wrote about the features in terms of the tasks each group needed the truck to handle.

The reservation step stayed close to those details, so an interested reader could continue without searching for the next page.

What it delivered
+28%
conversion from utility-led landing pages
A red F-150 Lightning charging in a showroom
F-150 Lightning trucks on a car carrier
02Dealers

Connecting a national launch to a local next step

A national launch still ends at a local dealer. Location-specific paths carried people from the announcement to dealer details, inventory context, and reservation information they could act on.

My part was the copy and the order of those steps.

What it delivered
−18%
cost per reservation in the first three months
A blue F-150 Lightning on a desert highway
03Owner education

Answering questions before the order

Between reserving and ordering, people had questions. The owner-education sequence answered them in the order they came up.

What it delivered
−16%
repeat preorder questions after the owner-education sequence
An F-150 Lightning kicking up dust off-road
An F-150 Lightning driving through dust, head-on
04Commercial

Reaching commercial buyers

Commercial buyers arrived from LinkedIn and YouTube ads. The reservation pages connected the features in those ads with the work buyers needed to do.

What it delivered
+38%
commercial lead-to-reservation rate from targeted LinkedIn and YouTube traffic

Built for the work

Launch photography and design
A red F-150 Lightning on a coastal highway
An F-150 Lightning on a city street
A blue F-150 Lightning on a city street
An F-150 Lightning exterior design sketch
A worker at the Ford Rouge Electric Vehicle Center
Sc. 17C · By the numbersLaunch to order

What the reservations did next

200K+
Reservations

Reservations before ordering opened in January 2022.

Landing conversion
+28%
Higher conversion from utility-led landing pages
Explainer completion
2.1×
Higher completion for use-case feature explainers
Fewer queries
−16%
Fewer repeat preorder questions after the owner-education sequence
Sc. 17D · Inside the caseCampaign video
An F-150 Lightning powering a backyard setup from its tailgate
Intelligent Backup PowerCampaign video
Production credits
EngagementLaunch copy and reservation-funnel strategy
DisciplinesLaunch copy · Reservation path · Owner education
Year2022
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