New pricing

[kyle]

last week's restructing there was mention that Ford would release a new pricing structure. I have not heard any mention of that....any thoughts?

 

My first reaction is they are going to continue to reposition their prices closer to actual transaction price of the vehicle-just am not certain of what that will attain.

 

Also am I the only one who thought Ford should of piggy backed GM's announcement regarding their new warranty? That is a missed opportunity and possibly brought about because of the management changes.

 

Who knows but I do agree 100% of what Bill Ford said about the employees and company are just sick and tired of hearing only negative news....they need to start playing offense. I also would like to see them put up their advertising account up for bid....JW Thompson has had it forever and to be honest it lacks almost as much credibility as a Bush news conference!

 

K

[RichardJensen]

1) Ford's actuaries need to find out what it will cost to go 100k on the powertrain. Knee-jerk "we can do that too" responses are bad. Undoubtedly they're looking at this issue seriously. Intriguingly, GM did not give Caddy a better warranty.

 

2) Ford's been, as new products are launched, pushing MSRPs down. The Five Hundred hit the market with the same MSRP as the Taurus. Give or take a few hundred. The Fusion is a steal, and the Expedition looks like one too. The F150 and Explorer need to lose more than they have, price wise.

 

3) JWT is finally pulling their weight. They coasted along on Ford's coat tails for years. There was a big shakeup in the JWT Detroit office this spring, and Ford's new marketing efforts are better than they have been since "Quality is Job 1".

 

Besides, there are only two agency "supergroups" in the world capable of handling an account of Ford's size. Omnicom and WPP.

 

Omnicom's BBDO unit gave us the atrocious Dr. Z ads so, I don't think switching is such a good idea.

 

Trust me, the new Ford commercials, the ones with lots of people, a few cars, and almost no "yada yada yada" about the car, are going to be very effective at building Ford's brand.

 

"Bold Moves" coupled with a product lineup that will look a lot sharper next year (with the new Expedition, Escape, Focus & Five Hundred 'faces') will work.

 

The Ford "Bold Moves" website is also a revolutionary concept, and shows that JWT can think on their feet. New campaigns for Lincoln and Jaguar also finally show a level of focus that has just not been there.

 

Ironically, this is because the client (Ford Motor) has not been focused. If you don't know what you want, your advertising agency is going to give you crap. It's that simple.

[kyle]

good point on the brand coasting around....not going to argue with that I just want to see "more." Ads where you walk away and feel like they are getting it and it is reaching out to the consumer. They do this more with the Mustang and seeing a few ads with the trucks but the initial Fusions ads were terrible. I am pretty certain they dropped "life in D"

 

I agree with you regarding them studying the warranty but I really feel their warranty to 60k on powertrain (or 70K) is just not good enough and if you want consumers to switch from their Toyota's or Honda's you have to be a lot better-good enough let's face it does not count anymore.

 

I am aware they have been dropping prices and think it is a move in the right direction...but I heard that they were going to be making some type of announcement and none was made. With each intro they have to adjust their prices to better reflect the real world

[RichardJensen]

Warranty does nothing for lease customers, and it exerts only a marginal impact on retail buyers--a fair amount of sales gains by the Koreans has been in the daily rental area.

 

Life in "D" was a start, but as yet, Ford hadn't crystalized their marketing direction.

 

Ford is now pushing the entire brand, even submerging "Built Ford Tough" under the "Bold Moves" umbrella.

 

Ads like "Reaching out" (the Freestyle ad with the divorced parents) work, it's a 30 second movie, not a 30 second commercial.

 

It just takes time for them to work.

 

While there are enough corporate pot-stirrers to prevent Ford from having the kind of unified message that VW had in their early Arnold World Wide days (the first "Drivers Wanted" ads), this "Bold Moves" campaign is more mature, more intelligently executed than Dodge's "Grab Life by the Horns" campaign which is the closest example of lifestyle marketing in the auto industry right now.

[mkaresh]

They have been steadily cutting prices. My site can be used to compare 2006 with 2007 prices. Check out the Explorer and Expedition.

 

http://www.truedelta.com/prices.php

 

Their advertising has been awful pretty much forever. Something about the tone is stuck in the 1950s, or even Greenfield Village. I blame the client, not the agency. Same client + new agency = usually the same result.

[ebritt]

1) Ford's actuaries need to find out what it will cost to go 100k on the powertrain. Knee-jerk "we can do that too" responses are bad. Undoubtedly they're looking at this issue seriously. Intriguingly, GM did not give Caddy a better warranty.

 

2) Ford's been, as new products are launched, pushing MSRPs down. The Five Hundred hit the market with the same MSRP as the Taurus. Give or take a few hundred. The Fusion is a steal, and the Expedition looks like one too. The F150 and Explorer need to lose more than they have, price wise.

 

3) JWT is finally pulling their weight. They coasted along on Ford's coat tails for years. There was a big shakeup in the JWT Detroit office this spring, and Ford's new marketing efforts are better than they have been since "Quality is Job 1".

 

Besides, there are only two agency "supergroups" in the world capable of handling an account of Ford's size. Omnicom and WPP.

 

Omnicom's BBDO unit gave us the atrocious Dr. Z ads so, I don't think switching is such a good idea.

 

Trust me, the new Ford commercials, the ones with lots of people, a few cars, and almost no "yada yada yada" about the car, are going to be very effective at building Ford's brand.

 

"Bold Moves" coupled with a product lineup that will look a lot sharper next year (with the new Expedition, Escape, Focus & Five Hundred 'faces') will work.

 

The Ford "Bold Moves" website is also a revolutionary concept, and shows that JWT can think on their feet. New campaigns for Lincoln and Jaguar also finally show a level of focus that has just not been there.

 

Ironically, this is because the client (Ford Motor) has not been focused. If you don't know what you want, your advertising agency is going to give you crap. It's that simple.

Rumor around here is that Explorer will go away soon......

[NickF1011]

Rumor around here is that Explorer will go away soon......

 

Why would you cancel a vehicle that still, relative to the rest of the market, sells in droves? Just because they can no longer move 400,000 of them a year is no reason to get rid of it. That's just silly-talk.

[kyle]

There is no way the explorer is going away....especially when you consider that GM is abadoning the segment in a few years.

 

I honestly think the largest reason the explorer is selling so poorly is because the updated version looks no different than the original. The is also going to haunt them with the release of the new expedition.

 

I remember a quote some years ago when they updated the original escort and were taken to task of not changing enough and the response was that the escort had the highest loyalty rate of any ford vehicle at the time...and when they asked the escort buyers what they wanted they asked for few changes...I was wondering why they did not ask the guys buying corolla's and civic's what it would take for them to buy the escort not the guy who bought the vehicle because it was the cheapest available....

[RichardJensen]

Explorer numbers have been a crapshoot to compare all year, due to the loss of Sport Trac volume.