There’s a certain kind of silence that happens in a founder room when a campaign flops. You don’t need anyone to say it out loud. You just know. Maybe it’s the analytics tab that won’t load fast enough, or the way someone says “early days” when they really mean “this one missed.” I’ve sat in that silence more than once.
That’s why when I saw the Sydney Sweeney ad—for a car, no less—I paused. Not because I’m a fan. Not because I care about Ford. But because, for the first time in a long time, an ad actually made me feel something.
And that’s rare.
What made it even more powerful? People weren’t just watching it. They were talking about it. Unprompted. On Reddit, on TikTok, in the group chats. Not in a “look at this cool thing” way, but in a “this means something” way. That kind of energy is gold—and most of us chase it our whole founder careers without ever bottling it.
But here’s what struck me: it wasn’t the production value. It wasn’t the celebrity. It wasn’t even the car. It was the honesty. The ad didn’t try to manipulate emotion. It just had emotion. And in today’s saturated, overproduced, funnel-optimized marketing world, that’s more disruptive than any viral stunt.
Let me walk you through why this landed—and how, if you’re building anything that requires belief, you should be paying attention.
The ad itself was deceptively simple. Sydney Sweeney, known for roles in Euphoria and White Lotus, is filmed restoring an old Ford Bronco. She talks about learning to fix cars with her grandfather. She’s not reading lines. She’s in a garage, in a T-shirt, sanding down a panel. It doesn’t feel like a commercial. It feels like a moment. You don’t even see the actual product being promoted—the Ford Mustang Mach-E—until the very end. By that time, you’ve already decided if you believe her. And most people did.
I’ve built enough early-stage brand stories to know this was no accident. This was strategy, but the kind that doesn’t scream. And that’s exactly what founders need to understand: in a landscape where everyone is shouting, the whisper cuts through.
We’ve all been told some version of the same advice. Make the value prop clear in the first five seconds. Hook them fast. Lead with the product. Drive to a call-to-action. None of that happened in this ad—and it worked anyway. Because what it gave people wasn’t a reason to buy. It gave them a reason to believe. And when belief is present, purchase is just one of many outcomes. Loyalty is another. So is cultural relevance.
The reason this was so compelling wasn’t just that it felt real. It was real. Sydney has a car restoration shop in real life. She posts about it on social media. She didn’t adopt this identity for the campaign—Ford partnered with her because the identity already existed. They didn’t insert a brand into her life. They let the brand orbit around something she already cared about.
That’s the difference.
Most founder-led startups, when they scale, try to inject meaning into their marketing from the outside. They hire agencies. They write decks. They brainstorm messaging pillars. But meaning doesn’t work that way. It has to leak out of something you already live. Otherwise, customers will feel it’s manufactured. And when people sense the fiction, they tune out.
This is especially true in Southeast Asia, where consumers are sensitive to overpromising. Flashy branding works once. But long-term trust? That comes from consistency. From showing up the same way across touchpoints, and from giving people something to recognize—not just something to react to.
Ford understood this. They didn’t make Sydney act. They let her exist. And in doing so, they created the most believable campaign of the year.
It reminded me of a campaign we tried back in 2021. We were launching a new savings product for freelancers, and we wanted to lean into empowerment messaging. The creative agency gave us polished copy, a bright palette, and a tagline about “taking control of your future.” It all looked good on paper. But when the ad went live, it tanked. Click-throughs were low. Feedback was flat. People didn’t hate it. They just didn’t feel it.
A month later, our customer support rep, Amira, recorded a 60-second voice memo for her friend explaining how the app helped her set aside money for her mom’s surgery. That clip made its way into our internal Slack. Someone suggested posting it raw. We did. No edits. Just her voice. The post exploded. We got more inbound that week than from all the paid media combined.
That taught me something I wish I’d learned earlier: trust lives in texture. Not polish.
The Sydney Sweeney ad had that texture. Her voice was steady but emotional. Her hands were dirty. Her face wasn’t perfectly lit. There were pauses. Breaths. The ad left space for people to interpret what they were seeing. And in that space, people connected. They didn’t feel sold to. They felt invited in. This is the future of brand. Not shouting louder. Not flooding more channels. But finding the story that already exists—and letting it breathe.
Founders forget that too often. We get so caught up in the push—the launch plan, the investor update, the CAC math—that we forget how belief actually spreads. Not from perfect decks or genius taglines, but from emotional credibility. From a moment that feels honest enough to share.
The other thing that worked here was restraint. Ford could’ve filled the ad with product shots. They could’ve listed features. They could’ve cut to footage of the Mustang Mach-E on the road. Instead, they trusted the payoff. They let the viewer stay in the story long enough to want to know more. And that’s a kind of creative confidence most founders never get to experience, because we’re too anxious about whether people will stick around.
I get it. We’re taught to optimize everything. But the problem with optimizing for short-term action is you often kill long-term memory. You get the click, but lose the connection.
I’d rather have 10 people remember us a year from now than 10,000 scroll past today. So what does this mean if you’re building a brand from scratch, or trying to revive one that’s lost momentum? It means you need to ask different questions.
Not “what should we say?” but “what do we already live that people would care about?”
Not “how do we highlight the product?” but “what does using it actually feel like—and who can show that honestly?”
Not “how do we go viral?” but “what would be meaningful to share, even if it didn’t?”
I mentor founders in KL and Riyadh, and I tell them the same thing every time we talk about marketing: your customers are not waiting for your next campaign. They are living their own lives. You do not get attention by interrupting them. You get attention by respecting their time, and offering something emotionally valuable in return.
The Sydney Sweeney ad did exactly that.
And look—I’m not naive. I know this ad still served a business goal. It was still strategic. But that’s the point. It didn’t feel like strategy. It felt like sincerity. And that’s what wins today.
The hard part? You can’t fake sincerity. Not for long. You have to start from a place of truth. You have to know what your brand actually stands for, who you are actually building for, and why anyone should care about your existence. If that foundation is weak, no ad can save you. But if it’s strong, you don’t need to shout. You just need to show up—honestly, consistently, and with just enough vulnerability to feel human.
That’s what this campaign showed us. Not that celebrity ads still work. But that real still works—when the real person and the real product actually belong together. So if you’re a founder trying to figure out your next move—your next brand push, your next campaign, your next story—here’s what I’d say.
Start smaller. Start truer. Start by asking: what part of your company would still matter if nobody was watching? And then build from there.
Because that’s the story people will care about. And once they care—you’ve already won.
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