{"id":165,"date":"2006-07-04T07:27:00","date_gmt":"2006-07-04T14:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paulgillin.com\/2006\/07\/fords-bold-moves-campaign-raises-transparency-stakes.html"},"modified":"2006-07-04T07:27:00","modified_gmt":"2006-07-04T14:27:00","slug":"fords-bold-moves-campaign-raises-transparency-stakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/2006\/07\/fords-bold-moves-campaign-raises-transparency-stakes\/","title":{"rendered":"Ford's Bold Moves campaign raises transparency stakes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ford is taking openness to the next level in the innovative campaign. The company hired an award-winning documentary film crew and gave them unprecedented access to the \"\"<\/a>behind-the-scenes world of Ford as the automaker struggles to reinvent itself. A new short video will be posted every week.<\/p>\n

This certainly is a step toward transparency in a market that needs to reinvent itself. Among the quotes from Ford executives in the first episode:<\/p>\n

“Maybe we didn’t care for as we should have.”
“We’re in trouble because we lost touch with the consumer. “
“It’s very easy in our own little offices to create our own idea about what it means to be competitive.”
“The auto industry is in a stage of major crisis…this is a company that really could go down.”
“Our pricing is irrational.”<\/p>\n

These are Ford executives talking<\/span>.<\/p>\n

The video also features prominent headlines about auto industry losses and clips of its competitors’ cars and logos.<\/p>\n

The home page is adorned with a headline ticker that this morning includes this: “Ford Motor’s June U.S. Auto Sales Decline 6.9% to 269,404<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

As advertising goes, this campaign certainly breaks the mold. It is startlingly honest. Ford deserves a lot of credit for trying it. The company reportedly is spending $50 million on the Bold Moves initiative.<\/p>\n

Not that the site is perfect. The point-counterpoint columns on today’s home page aren’t really as controversial as they could be. And, as BL Ochman points out in an excellent post<\/a>, the site’s commenting policies and disclaimers are excessive. The registration confirmation message also contains this strange line: “If you no longer wish to receive any email communications from Ford Division call 1-888-829-8149.” Huh?<\/p>\n

But given how difficult it must be for a company to take a chance with a campaign like this, the product is remarkable. I’ll look forward to future weekly episodes.
<\/p>\n

Categories: viral marketing<\/a>, corporateblogging<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ford is taking openness to the next level in the innovative campaign. The company hired an award-winning documentary film crew and gave them unprecedented access to the behind-the-scenes world of Ford as the automaker struggles to reinvent itself. A new … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pTy95-2F","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}