(01 / faq)
Questions.
Working with Ford Media Lab
What does Ford Media Lab do?
Ford Media Lab builds and runs brands for spirits, wine, luxury and CPG. We originate the strategy and the visual world, produce the work in our Miami studio with the product captured for real on a Hasselblad and extended through AI production, then operate the channels after launch: social, community, influencer and trade programs, and for some brands the whole marketing calendar. Two founders who came up inside the spirits trade run every engagement.
How does an engagement start?
With a briefing call. You bring the brand and the problem; we bring a read on it before the call ends. From there we scope the engagement, lock the treatment, and move to production. Most clients come back, which is the model working as intended.
Do you only work with spirits brands?
No. Spirits is home turf, built on 18 years behind the bar and inside the ambassador programs at Rémy Cointreau and Diageo, and we both hold Level 1 from the Court of Master Sommeliers. The same pipeline serves wine, luxury and consumer brands: Perrier-Jouët and Maria Tash sit on the same roster as Diageo and Pernod Ricard.
How fast can you turn a project?
Most projects run two to four weeks from brief to final files, and retainer requests usually land in days. The pipeline removes the waiting between concept and deliverable, not the care. Fast is not the same as cheap.
AI production, accuracy, and disclosure
Is your work real photography or AI?
Both, deliberately. The product is captured for real: studio plates shot on a Hasselblad, composited and finished by hand in Photoshop. AI generates environments, extensions, and motion around that captured truth. The bottle in the frame is your bottle.
Will our bottle look accurate?
Yes. Accuracy is the entire reason we shoot physical plates instead of generating the product. Label, glass, liquid, and proportions come from the studio capture, not from a model’s guess. We wrote about this approach in our digital twin essay on the Visual Intelligence index.
Can AI-assisted imagery run in paid media?
Yes. Deceptive advertising was always illegal; the medium is not the violation. What matters is that the claims in the ad are true and the product depiction is accurate, which our plate-first pipeline is built to guarantee. We work with counsel on disclosure requirements as they evolve by jurisdiction.
How do you handle AI disclosure?
We published Rendered, Not Recorded as an open standard: a plain-language disclosure line for work featuring digital talent, free for anyone to use. Where a jurisdiction requires specific synthetic-performer disclosure, we comply with it and build the language into the deliverable.
Rights and ownership
Who owns the finished assets?
Ford Media Lab holds the copyright, and you license the work. Our compositing and finishing process builds enough documented human authorship into every visual to make it protectable, which is what makes the license worth something. For social and website use we typically grant unlimited usage, because ongoing content is a volume relationship, not a metering exercise. Full buyouts exist but are rare and scoped separately. Terms are set in the contract, not implied.
Do you use real people’s likenesses?
Not without consent, ever. Digital talent in our work carries the disclosure line: featuring digital talent, no likeness of any real person. When a real person appears, they were photographed, released, and paid.
What is Rendered, Not Recorded?
Our published disclosure standard for AI-produced imagery featuring digital talent. It states plainly that no real person’s likeness was used. We released it as an open standard because the industry needs a shared convention more than we need a proprietary one.
Pricing and engagement
How much does spirits product photography cost?
Most projects run $30,000 to $75,000, and full campaigns start in six figures. Scope sets the number: hero assets, motion, usage and timeline. Ranges for projects and retainers are published on the partnership page, so the first call is about the work.
Do you offer retainers?
Yes. Most retainers run social, community and content month over month against a visual world we built, and they replace a digital agency of record. Rachel Ford manages every one. Most run $20,000 to $35,000 a month, and we hold four at most.
The studio
What is a marketing laboratory?
Our name for what Ford Media Lab is: one team that sets a brand’s strategy, produces the work in our Miami studio and runs the channels after launch, instead of three vendors handing it off. The laboratory part is literal. We test, document and lock repeatable methods rather than improvising per project.
What is The LAB?
The Lost Ambassador Bureau: four former spirits brand ambassadors, Rachel Ford, Kyle Ford, Erick Castro and Nick Hogan, hired by premium spirits brands as one unit. Details at fordmedialab.com/the-lab.
What is conscious compute?
Our sustainability protocol. Production runs carbon-negative through Climeworks direct air capture and water-positive through Bonneville Environmental Foundation water restoration certificates, funded monthly. Each diagnostic in our footer links to the program behind it.