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The Meaninglessness of Ford Motor CompanyBy Corbin Rusch
It seems like whenever when we turn on the radio or television, we see or hear another story about the sad state of affairs for domestic auto manufacturers. Sales continue to slide and quality continues to lag behind Asian imports. Ford Motor Company has certainly seen its share of this kind of “bad news.” In fact, a recent American Customer Satisfaction Index study ranked Ford last in customer satisfaction amid a continued decrease in sales numbers despite having a majority of new or recently refreshed models. Ford has told the press and its dealers that the reason why perceived quality remains low and dealer and corporate margins continue to shrink is that there are simply too many dealerships. The rationale, if you can call it that, is that the dealers are not making enough money because there is too much competition between Ford dealers. Dealer profits are down 10% in 2006 alone. The shrinking pool of Ford buyers is being spread too thinly. If dealers are not making money then they cannot take care of the customers as they should and they cannot spend money promoting the brand. Let me repeat that, Ford believes that because dealers are not making money they cannot spend money promoting the brand. I assure you, I am not making this up. In fact, at Ford’s recent dealer meeting in Las Vegas, there was a roundtable where dealers were invited to come listen to Ford talk about the current state of public relations within the company. As I am sure you can imagine the news was not good. However, Ford representatives actually told the dealers that they needed help on the PR front from the dealers. Not only does Ford believe that it is the responsibility of the dealers to promote the brand, it is also, according to Ford, the responsibility of the dealers to actively engage in PR. Even without marketing expertise and an MBA this sounds like a really bad idea. One of the fundamental problems with any brand is uniformity of message. Some brands, with incredible foundations bolstered by propriety market and consumer insights, fall flat on their face because they do not make sure all of the brand messages are uniform and meet the standards set by the promise of the brand. On this single criterion alone, Ford fails miserably. Instead of one cohesive brand-driving message where Ford has total control of content, Ford is advocating 3,800 tattered, poorly produced, and ineffective messages. However, Ford’s problems, and those for the other domestic auto manufactures, for that matter, go much deeper than that. There is a marketing term: single-minded proposition. This can be defined as the key differentiation of your product from the perspective of the customer. Usually, it is a short statement of only a couple of words that says who your product is for and why. This single-minded proposition is most effective if it locked in with the name or logo of a given company. This statement in this context is called a themeline, because, as the name suggests, it is a textural representation of the “theme” or promise of the company. For example, Citi uses “Live Richly” as their themeline. “Live Richly” goes well beyond a clever ad slogan. In fact, the idea of “live richly” has permeated throughout the organization and Citi now uses “live richly” as the context for the decisions they make within the company. Meaning, whenever a new ad, corporate communication, or a new product or service is introduced, it is judged against the idea of “live richly.” If the new item does not help to further the idea of “live richly” then it is scrapped as it is deemed as not living up to the promise of the brand. Why does “live richly” work? It comes from the perspective of the consumer they wish to influence. The promise is to help Citi’s clients live more richly, however the client wishes to define “living richly,” be it saving for college, retirement, traveling when you want, or buying a house. With Ford, their current corporate themeline, if you can call it that, is “Bold Moves.” Their ad group has decided to reinforce that by using Taylor Hicks in a new commercial sing a song about “possibilities.” Again, there is no uniformity of message, even from Ford corporate. Ford is telling us to be “Bold” but then reverses course with this incredible non-promise of “possibilities.” Nonsensical. What should Ford or any of the other domestic manufactures do then? Research. Sure, they probably are spending a fortune on research now and can segment their market any which way to Friday. However, I propose that their research is bollocks. Clearly the focus of their research to this point has been solely on usage, attitudes, and market segmentation. While that provides Ford with invaluable market data, it tells them nothing about their customers, prospective or current. The DNA of any brand resides in the precepts, or germinal beliefs, of the customers the brand wishes to influence. “Live richly” was born out of these precepts and has become the single-minded proposition for Citi. Uncovering these precepts can only be accomplished through research designed to dig deeper than the normal usage and attitude study that most companies pass as “good research.” Research designed to understand the underlying precepts of those very consumers the brand wishes to influence, helps position the brand not only today, but insures that the brand will be relevant 5 years from now. It keeps your brand ahead of the curve and allows the company and the brand to better predict product life cycles and usage patterns. In short, precepts enable the brand to actually mean something to those it wishes to influence and meaning is what Ford has been lacking for years.
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