Has Ford's Marketing Department finally taken the gloves off?

R-Design · 04-05-2009, 01:58 PM

There's been some encouraging signs from Ford's Marketing Team lately. They're really pushing the Falcon’s fuel economy gains with respect to the competition.

Will it make a difference? What strategy is required in the current market?

http://carpoint.com.au/news/2009/lar...campaign-15009

http://www.drive.com.au/Editorial/Ar...rticleID=62409

**Silver Ghia** · 04-05-2009, 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boss315

There's been some encouraging signs from Ford's Marketing Team lately. They're really pushing the Falcon’s fuel economy gains with respect to the competition.

Noticed the full page ad in todays Herald-Sun newspaper. Its what has been said previously in AFF threads here, so perhaps Ford marketing are reading this forum.

However I thought the smaller print did not have enough contrast against the background for the message to be clear enough.

vztrt · 04-05-2009, 02:13 PM

Well at least they're pushing the Falcon. Not happy with the government only inflating Commo sales. Mind you I can understand Adelaide doing it (as the Commo is built there).

Jase_Boss · 04-05-2009, 02:15 PM

I think the Ford marketing team should really be doing some serious lobbying of the governments to point out the life cycle running cost savings of buying/operating the e-gas Falcons, this will have the advantage of supporting the brand and getting more cars into the overall market.

Dave_au · 04-05-2009, 02:31 PM

Ford actually spent more money on marketing in the last financial year than Holden, was reported in the Australian Financial Review about a month back.

I'm sure that will shock most of you.

JPFS1 · 04-05-2009, 02:42 PM

Don't worry... Burela is a complete breath of fresh air and he is single handedly getting out there and pushing the message and how important Ford is to the local Geelong community, let alone Australia.

He recently gave it to a bunch of business leaders... he is aggressive in style, which I like. He's not scared to tell it how it is.

Road_Warrior · 04-05-2009, 02:48 PM

Uncle Marin is on the case.

Hardtopxb · 04-05-2009, 02:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dave_au

Ford actually spent more money on marketing in the last financial year than Holden, was reported in the Australian Financial Review about a month back.

I'm sure that will shock most of you.

Correct. The thing is, if your ads are not effective it's vertually a waste of money advertising.Ford have to have a better quality ad campaign..

whynot · 04-05-2009, 02:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dave_au

Ford actually spent more money on marketing in the last financial year than Holden, was reported in the Australian Financial Review about a month back.

I'm sure that will shock most of you.

Narrr ... that doesn’t surprise me at all. The shock is how long the existing marketing team has been allowed to survive so long given their pathetic efforts to date.

By and large the general public believe that the Falcon is a thirsty dinosaur. If that is the case, then the responsibility falls on the marketing department to change that perception.

Ohio XB · 04-05-2009, 03:11 PM

The company has moved to a "Confident but not cocky" approach to marketing. They want to get their story out as well as the facts that people don't seem to know, and they would like to blow their own horn when they really have something on the competition, but still don't want to come across as arrogant. They did some surveying of sample advertising here in the US and learned that they could come across as arrogant and cocky if they just come out with certain bold statements.

That's why this advertisement surprises me. To say "Even Toyota is scared" could be construed as cocky.

There's also another saying......"It's not cocky if you can back it up."

I hope it works.

Steve

Jason[98.EL] · 04-05-2009, 03:20 PM

ford au have been running a heap of adds on foxtell for the last month

they have been doing themfor the falcon all varients aswell as the ranger 4x4 ect

it is a great thing to see the adds but it would be great to see more on normal free to air as well

Jason

Fev · 04-05-2009, 03:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dave_au

Ford actually spent more money on marketing in the last financial year than Holden, was reported in the Australian Financial Review about a month back.

I'm sure that will shock most of you.

i can imagine how much it cost to build those giant moving fingers!

R-Design · 04-05-2009, 03:23 PM

Burela is peddling hard that's for sure, going straight for the throat. Think we saw something similar when Polites was at the helm. Hopefully the rest of the team will step up and give him some support.

There's a tonne of articles out there where he's driving the message home. I think these are just as important as Print & TV ad's in changing people perceptions.

http://www.goauto.com.au/mellor/mell...25759E000514E4

Too bad he wasn't here for the FG's launch, he might have spared us 'the finger' (ad that is).

prydey · 04-05-2009, 04:11 PM

public perception is not being helped by media who often have their own agenda.

the 'drive' article amuses me. the woman in there was critical of the government buying commodores instead of camry's, labelling the commodores 'large gas guzzlers!'. how much less fuel efficient is the commo over the camry? 2L/100km? over 500km thats an extra 10L. not exactly chalk and cheese if you ask me. the public are still so quick to assume that the commo/falcon models are still a fair bit thirstier than the 4cyl competition.

all ford need to do is put a big billboard up with a picture of a falcon on it with very large 9.9L/100km plastered all over it.

mrbaxr6t · 04-05-2009, 05:45 PM

Ford need to tell the population how a falcon compares in terms of distance to a tank versus other vehicles to illustrate that it can hold its own against the 4 cylinder imports (camry say) litres per hundred is good to trumpet, but its hard for joe average to translate that into "how far can I go on $xx fuel?".

does that make sense? I hope you guys get it.

and it is fantastic that Fords' marketing dept are actually throwing down some messages aimed at the misconceptions.

Also I find Ford vehicles for the most part to be amongst the most reliable makes one can buy, why doesn't Ford marketing dig up some facts and hawk the reliability of the Falcon? - thoughts?

ThePistonHead · 04-05-2009, 05:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dave_au

Ford actually spent more money on marketing in the last financial year than Holden, was reported in the Australian Financial Review about a month back.

I'm sure that will shock most of you.

Not really.. Any manufacturer trying to promote an all new model will spend the big bucks when it comes to advertising.

When VE was released I'm sure their marketing costs were higher than Ford's at the time.

Antwon · 04-05-2009, 07:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ThePistonHead

Not really.. Any manufacturer trying to promote an all new model will spend the big bucks when it comes to advertising.

When VE was released I'm sure their marketing costs were higher than Ford's at the time.

When the VE was released they had a blimp.

JMO · 04-05-2009, 07:29 PM

^and a half hour inside look (commercial:P) on tv that aired a couple of times.

Mr Brooksy · 04-05-2009, 07:30 PM

Is there a link to any of the new FG ads?

ckugler · 04-05-2009, 07:32 PM

All the marketing/advertising in the world means didly squat when you have a flawed after sales department servicing the best locally built car. The amount of people I know that have embarrasing stories about their servicing, and myself also. It takes on average 3 visits to my local dealer just to get a problem that was caused from a dodgy service, finally fixed. Public perception of the car itself doesnt matter when public perception of the ownership experience is crap.

snakeoil · 04-05-2009, 07:46 PM

No disrespect to Toymota but I have never seen the value of a small car versus an E gas falcon.I have run two of these as utes and they were fantastic and cheap

At last the brilliant marketing minds at Broadmeadows have finally worked out that they have an absolute winner

All they have to do now is Engineer a Boss for LPG which will keep the greenies and maybe the planet happy

GO FORD

GT69 · 04-05-2009, 07:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ckugler

All the marketing/advertising in the world means didly squat when you have a flawed after sales department servicing the best locally built car. The amount of people I know that have embarrasing stories about their servicing, and myself also. It takes on average 3 visits to my local dealer just to get a problem that was caused from a dodgy service, finally fixed. Public perception of the car itself doesnt matter when public perception of the ownership experience is crap.

you no how you, the end user, can fix this? Instead of seeing the service centre, go to the sales department and talk to them about possibly upgrading your current vehicle, then say it wont be for a few months, salesmen will be overly generous trying to get you back so then just happen to mention that you wont be buying from this dealership because of the crap after sales. The salesman (try to get head salesman, you can always pick'em) will walk you over to the service department and get it sorted asap.

vztrt · 04-05-2009, 08:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrbaxr6t

Ford need to tell the population how a falcon compares in terms of distance to a tank versus other vehicles to illustrate that it can hold its own against the 4 cylinder imports (camry say) litres per hundred is good to trumpet, but its hard for joe average to translate that into "how far can I go on $xx fuel?".

Thats why they would be comparing the 4CYL Camry to the 6Cyl Falcon. The thinking would be that if the mindset of a 6cyl car is as efficient as a 4cyl car then why wouldn't you buy the more powerful car.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrbaxr6t

Also I find Ford vehicles for the most part to be amongst the most reliable makes one can buy, why doesn't Ford marketing dig up some facts and hawk the reliability of the Falcon? - thoughts?

Unfortunately satisfaction surveys put Ford at the bottom end of the pile. This wouldn't be there due to the fact that the cars aren't having problems.

4Vman · 04-05-2009, 08:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ckugler

All the marketing/advertising in the world means didly squat when you have a flawed after sales department servicing the best locally built car. The amount of people I know that have embarrasing stories about their servicing, and myself also. It takes on average 3 visits to my local dealer just to get a problem that was caused from a dodgy service, finally fixed. Public perception of the car itself doesnt matter when public perception of the ownership experience is crap.

It doesn't seem to effected holden....

snappy · 04-05-2009, 08:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4Vman

It doesn't seem to effected holden....

I would beg to differ as toyota seems to sell the most . An have a good rep

Gobes32 · 04-05-2009, 08:37 PM

Isn't an E-Gas Falcon one of the greenest aussie built cars due to a lower output of emissions? So is it not a no brainer for the government to purchase lpg vehicles due to low running costs and low emissions?

R-Design · 04-05-2009, 08:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ckugler

All the marketing/advertising in the world means didly squat when you have a flawed after sales department servicing the best locally built car. The amount of people I know that have embarrasing stories about their servicing, and myself also. It takes on average 3 visits to my local dealer just to get a problem that was caused from a dodgy service, finally fixed. Public perception of the car itself doesnt matter when public perception of the ownership experience is crap.

ckugler makes a great point. There was Three months worth of letters in the newspaper's detailing owner’s issues with Brakes on their Territory's. We blame the lack of a Diesel engine on Territory's poor sales, the bad press around the brake issue and Ford's slow response probably has more to do with it.

mrbaxr6t · 04-05-2009, 08:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boss315

ckugler makes a great point. There was Three months worth of letters in the newspaper's detailing owner’s issues with Brakes on their Territory's. We blame the lack of a Diesel engine on Territory's poor sales, the bad press around the brake issue and Ford's slow response probably has more to do with it.

I would have to agree completely with this statement - how many people that had brake shudder on BA-BF's that had it band aided by the dealer do we know of.... I persobnally know of five cases of this and amazingly they seem to know how to fix it once the warranty has run its course. the dealers servicing the cars unfortunately mostly are crap, this destroys the ownership experience.

4Vman · 04-05-2009, 08:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snappy84

I would beg to differ as toyota seems to sell the most . An have a good rep

Ive owned as many new holdens as new Fords and i can guarantee you their service is no better than Ford's, in fact my experience with holden's service makes Fords' look good in comparrison, toyota aint anything remarkable, neither is mazda either.. from my observations they're all pretty much the same unless overall, its a dealer by dealer thing, the only way to get outstanding service is go euro, but you pay for it...

zetec · 04-05-2009, 08:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vztrt

Thats why they would be comparing the 4CYL Camry to the 6Cyl Falcon. The thinking would be that if the mindset of a 6cyl car is as efficient as a 4cyl car then why wouldn't you buy the more powerful car.

Unfortunately satisfaction surveys put Ford at the bottom end of the pile. This wouldn't be there due to the fact that the cars aren't having problems.

Got any proof?