When COVID-19 brought global uncertainty in 2020, Ford’s traditional, physical marketing projects came to a sudden halt. But where one door closed, another opened — online.

Esports was booming. With millions stuck at home, sim racing and streaming platforms saw record engagement. Ford moved fast. Rather than pause on innovation, it launched Team Fordzilla: a bold entry into the esports arena.

More than a marketing play, Fordzilla was a strategic experiment — a way to stay relevant, reach younger digital audiences, and explore new frontiers in brand engagement during an unprecedented time.

Faced with the challenge of staying culturally relevant during a time of lockdowns and halted production, Ford sought to do more than just maintain visibility — it wanted to experiment.

The task was to enter the esports space not as an outsider, but as an authentic contributor. Ford’s goal: to connect with digital-native audiences in a meaningful way and explore how virtual car experiences could shape the future of automotive engagement.

Could a digital-only concept car generate the same excitement as a physical one? And if so, where exactly does the value lie — in the design, the interactivity, or the sense of ownership shared with the community?

Rather than simply sponsor an existing team, Ford took a more ambitious path: it built Team Fordzilla from the ground up — embedded directly in the vibrant Forza racing game community.

But the most innovative move came with the Fordzilla P1 Project: a call to gamers across Europe to help crowdsource the design of an entirely new virtual race car.

Through social media polls, the community voted on every key element — from cockpit style to overall shape. Ford’s design team collaborated with players in real time, merging gaming passion with real-world automotive expertise.

The final concept, the Fordzilla P1, wasn’t just a car in the game — it was a co-created digital icon, built for the screen by its own fans.

Despite its bold intent, the Fordzilla initiative remained a short-term experiment with limited lasting impact. Community engagement around the P1 project was brief, and the concept didn’t significantly influence the broader esports or automotive conversation. In hindsight, macro factors played a role — the world rebounded from COVID faster than expected, and the niche size of the racing sim community became clear. Unlike globally recognized motorsport like Formula 1, platforms like Forza and Gran Turismo cater to a passionate but comparatively small segment of gamers — far below the scale needed to move the needle for a global automotive brand.

Internally, the experience revealed a deeper truth: successful digital products need to be rooted in reality. When tied to real-world narratives or institutions — like professional racing — digital extensions gain legitimacy. But when too fictional, they risk feeling detached, and lose emotional and cultural credibility. For Ford, the Fordzilla project became less about metrics and more about learning: an important exploration of where brand relevance lives in a digital-first world — and where it doesn’t.

While the Fordzilla project explored bold terrain, it ultimately fell short of building lasting traction — not just due to scale, but due to missing emotional and narrative levers. One of the most significant gaps was around identity and norms: there was no clear sense of who the community was or why they should care. Without a defined tribe, purpose, or protagonist, the project struggled to create cultural gravity. For digital projects to resonate, especially in gaming, they need more than design — they need belonging. Fordzilla had innovation, but it lacked a unifying ethos that participants could adopt, defend, or grow with. In a crowded digital space, identity isn’t optional — it’s the entry ticket to relevance.