Ford: Yeah Yeah That's It ...Lets use Da Boss In da Commercials

The WSJ reported that the Ford Motor Co. will air a series of television commercials featuring William Clay Ford Jr., the company's new chairman and chief executive and a member of its founding family,to restore the automaker's battered public image.

The campaign comes as the No. 2 automaker is trying to overcome the lingering effects of the Firestone tire recall, as well as a string of quality gaffes. Last month, Ford announced a major restructuring including 35,000 job cuts after running its first annual loss in nearly a decade.

The WSJ quoted a Ford dealer who has seen early cuts of the new TV commercials, he said that the ads prominently feature Mr. Ford as the company's spokesman, talking about its long heritage and tradition as an auto maker at his desk in his office in the company's headquarters building in Dearborn, Mich. "Objective of all this? Part of it is to say, 'We are almost 100 years old and we are okay,'" said the Ford dealer. "I think that's probably the main message, to get consumers to think positively about Ford again."

The Last Lines

This advertising effort is exactly how Iacocca used the power of personality at Chrysler in the seventies.

Our feeling is that the way to restore Ford's reputation is to "BUILD GOOD CARS THAT PEOPLE WANT!", I think that after 100 years of success, Ford's present management and their advisors would understand this.

Below are a few quotes from the Man Himself, Henry Ford...why dosen't the Ford Company leadership pay attention to where they came from, and "USE These Truths" to help them once again be sucessful.

Henry Ford: "We want to live in the present, the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today."

Henry Ford: "I will build a car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one-and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God's great open spaces."

Henry Ford: "Life is a series of experience, each of which makes us bigger even though it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and griefs which we endure help us in our marching onward."

Henry Ford: "The greatest thing we can produce is character. Everything else can be taken from us."

Comments? Bob Gordon Co-publisher