When it comes to marketing trucks, automakers have with few exceptions filled ads with white male leads engaging in a series of testosterone-fueled activities like hauling boulders, blazing trails or towing mass amounts of machinery. But as Ford begins advertising its new Maverick compact pickup, it is flipping the script in search of a new kind of truck buyer.

The star of the launch campaign is Gabrielle Union, the Black actress known for roles in movies such as the cheerleading flick “Bring it On” and for sharing parenting pics on social media with husband and ex-National Basketball League star Dwyane Wade. She is a far cry from traditional truck ad stars such as Denis Leary, who for years barked at viewers in boastful truck ads that deployed phrases like “look,” “hey,” or “pal” until he was sidelined a couple years ago for the gravely voiced Bryan Cranston. 

With the pivot, Ford is prioritizing younger, urban-dwelling and diverse drivers whom the automaker is banking are willing to trade in their sedans for something more able to handle a weekend trip to go kayaking or biking. Maverick—which is expected to hit dealerships this fall—will become Ford’s smallest and most-affordable truck. The brand teased it today with digital videos, including one in which Union gives a glimpse of the Maverick while telling viewers, “the truck you didn’t see coming, is coming.” 

Wieden+Kennedy New York is handling the campaign, which will lean heavily on social media, including TikTok.

Maverick is going for what Ford global Chief Marketing Officer Suzy Deering describes as an “untapped audience”—of younger, diverse buyers with active lifestyles—“people who very often would have maybe said they were not a truck customer.”

Union “truly is the essence of who this Maverick customer is. She is very athletic, she is constantly on the go. She wears multiple hats in that she is a mom, but at the same time is entrepreneurial,” Deering adds. She is “very much about breaking the stereotype of how you would think about a truck customer.”

A second video plugs the Maverick as a pickup for those who need to park in the city but also escape the city.

Ford is expected to release more details about the vehicle on June 8, including the starting price. Automotive News, citing dealers, has reported that the compact pickup truck will go for less than $20,000, which puts it about $5,000 less expensive than the base version of Ford’s Ranger midsize pickup. The automaker’s top-selling pickup is the larger F-Series, which is the best-selling vehicle in the U.S. of any kind.

Maverick arrives as more buyers shun sedans in favor of SUVs and trucks, leading Ford to kill off models such as the Fiesta, Focus and Fusion. Smaller pickup trucks don’t have a great track record in the U.S. The Detroit Free Press recently mentioned the Volkswagen Rabbit pickup and Subaru's Brat and Baja as failures of previous generations.

But consumer tastes have changed, giving small pickups a good chance at making a dent in the market, suggests Michelle Krebs, an executive analyst at Kelley Blue Book owner Cox Automotive. “We are in a new age. Truck sales are exploding and they just keep going higher and higher,” she says. “What has happened is full-sized trucks have gotten bigger and bigger and more expensive,” as have midsize trucks, she says, adding that “there is this white space underneath.”

Ford is not the only automaker going after this white space. Hyundai recently announced a new crossover-based pickup called the Santa Cruz that is named for the California surfing town and due to hit dealers this summer. A promotional video plugs it for people who want to get “out of town into adventure.”