Comments on: Ford: Transforming market means transforming marketing

By: Christopher Brown

Christopher Brown — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 23:48:25 +0000

Nice update Peder, how things have change for the car industry since you wrote this!

By: Peder

Peder — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 21:14:48 +0000

I just saw this update on Ford’s decision to use social media to create buzz around the new Fiesta. They’re giving out a few cars and asking the recipients to write about their experience. They’re cultivating a word of mouth campaign in the place where their target market likes to talk. For innovation’s sake, I hope this works well for them.

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2009/04/how-the-fiesta.html

By: Peder

Peder — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 23:10:52 +0000

Fair point ryster. I wonder if we’re not seeing some of that rewiring in progress. As my dad used to say, people don’t change unless the hurt is bad enough. I think US car manufacturers are hurting pretty bad these days, but as you say, time will tell whether or not these changes are substantive or merely cosmetic.

By: ryster

ryster — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 22:36:04 +0000

Seems to me that restocking the creative agency and reorganizing reporting structures is akin to putting lipstick on a pig, the end result is its still a pig.

Meeting with the dealers is a reasonable start. However, Ford (and GM and Chrystler) needs to change the very nature of how they perceive the world. Their mindsets have them competing with a 1980′s approach in a new millenium.

What’s required is to rewire their brains an focus on creating superior value for customers, rather than copying each other and flogging rebates.

Ford is not a bad as GM – I predict GM is show down their North American operations within 15 years. Chrysler is a wild card. Perhaps they are going to make it. Time will tell.