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Autos July 31, 2008, 5:00PM EST

Ford: A Toyota Vet to the Rescue

(page 3 of 3)

Creative chief Barlow helped assemble Ford's marketing dream team Bill Cramer/Wonderful Machine

Flex product manager Raghavachari exercises strict brand discipline Bill Cramer/Wonderful Machine

So when Farley invited a group of 30 influential dealers to a marketing confab in January, they weren't expecting much. It didn't help that the meeting was held not in Florida or Las Vegas but in Detroit, where snow was piled high from a New Year's Eve storm. Adding to the gloom of rising gas prices and collapsing home values was the dispiriting paucity of new models dealer had to sell the following fall: a new F-150 pickup and the car-based Flex SUV. "We had no coherent strategy for selling cars at a time when we could see this huge shift from trucks to cars," recalls Jeff Roberson, who owns a Ford dealership in Bend, Ore.

DO THE HENRY?

As they flew in from all over the country, the dealers braced for PowerPoint presentations and executive blah-blah. Instead they were shuttled off to a market research firm called Morpace. There, Farley, caffeinated and fidgety as usual, announced that the dealers were about to participate in a focus group. Ford normally recruited only consumers for that. But Farley told the dealers they knew more than anyone about their customers and what Ford does right and wrong. Before long the dealers were answering questions like: Which incentives work and which don't? What is wrong with Ford's advertising? What does the Ford brand mean to you?

Here's what really blew the dealers away: Farley asked them to critique the three new slogans and brand strategies that had emerged from the Doubletree brainstorming session. It had generated some duds—"Do the Henry" (as in Ford) was one for the wastebasket—and three possibilities: "Drive One," "Get into It," and a return to "Have You Driven a Ford Lately?" The dealers and hundreds of staffers voted and picked Drive One, which Farley hopes will be to Ford what "The Ultimate Driving Machine" is to BMW. "It doesn't sound like copywriting magic to me," says Dan Gorrell, president of marketing consultant AutoStrategem. "The more important thing than the slogan is to stop the schizophrenia and be consistent in a way that says 'you can trust us.'"

There is one thing Farley can't change: the vehicles Ford is rolling out now. Yes, the company plans to bring six models to the U.S. from Europe, including the Ford Fiesta, a fuel-efficient subcompact. But Farley's first rollout is Flex, a seven-seat car-based SUV meant to woo disaffected owners of gas-thirsty Ford Explorers and boring minivans. Like it or not, Farley will be judged on the success of Flex's launch.

Farley turned to Usha Raghavachari, 32, who joined Ford's U.S. operations three years ago after managing the Ka minicar brand, one of the company's biggest overseas successes. Raghavachari, born in India and raised in London, represents a new kind of Ford marketing executive. In the past, muckety-mucks could simply torch an idea they didn't like. Because she answers to Farley, she has real power and accountability.

Raghavachari's first move with Team Detroit was to create a Flex brand book—a bible that spells out every attribute of the Flex. Scion, MINI, and even Ford Europe have done this. But Ford U.S. had never before put so much work into defining a vehicle before asking for ad concepts. "We need the discipline of the brand book to make sure everyone is connected to the same idea," Raghavachari says. The Flex is supposed to be a hip urban vehicle that Ford hopes will attract people for its design aesthetic rather than utility. At Farley's urging, the team honed the Flex brand mission from a page, to a paragraph, and then to one sentence: "For people in search of stimulation."

Raghavachari's brand book instructs dealers and ad makers that the Flex will never be shown with picnicking families, beach volleyball games, or dogs. No mentions of cup holders. "We can't have this turn into a dog-drool minivan, but it might if we don't exercise discipline," says Rogers. All photography of the Flex was shot at night to drive home the nocturnally hip, ready-to-go-clubbing image Ford is aiming for.

In April, at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, Farley showed dealers the Drive One ads and a peek at the Flex campaign they helped devise. Despite concerns about gas prices and buzz that Ford would lose a bundle in the coming quarter, he and Mulally received a standing ovation. "Times are tough, but we were so high because of the faith we have in the idea, and because we're participating in the solution like never before," says Texas dealer Charles Gilchrist. That night, Ford executives invited Farley to join them in the casino. He begged off. "I already won today," Farley told them. "Let's not be greedy."

Kiley is a senior correspondent in BusinessWeek's Detroit bureau.

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