Ford...Back up the Charts!

[partsguy]

Originally Posted by LSTerritoryGhia

Simple solution - buy all the dealerships back and run them properly, either that or make it harder for dealers to stay in the group.

That little trick was tried and failed badly in Sydney. Ford resigned to the fact that running a dealership wasn't as easy as they thought. It started in Melbourne but the dealer network was a little more stubborn and it never got off the ground.
The Perth Auto Alliance which incorporates most dealers in Perth is still running but Perth works a little differently largely because of the distance from the heavily competitive eastern states dealers.

Would love to see some dealers franchises revoked, some are just plain shonky. Especially those ones claiming to be 'the greatest in the free world'

[Franky]

1. Well for a start bring back the 'amazing' Territory Ad...
2. Get rid of the 'XT' base model name
3. Advertise the Falcon more, including details about the new model
4. Introduce a Ghia turbo
5. Stop pushing the new Falcon as being european! I think Aussies would rather it be made for australian conditions.
6. Instead of trying to achieve 15 FPV models make 5 decents ones first (GT, GT-HO (drop P), F6 Typhoon, F6 Tornado and Tempest Territory)
7. Slightly increase GT kw to 300kw or 302kw
8. Advertise the cars more instead of morons in Ford suits moving their arms about and grinning
9. FFS advertise the utes!!! Havn't seen a ford ute ad for a while
10. Copy off the Mazda ads by advertising multiple models in the ads instead of just one. For instance do a performance based ad with the xr6, xr6 turbo and xr8 driving around and at the finale have them parked next to each other at a low angle so that the subtle differences are shown (aka the budge, the intercooler and the badges)
11. Market the base model as a run around family car, highlight things such as good range of power, fuel economy and space that families look for in a car.
12. I know this last one will cost too much but I hope they fix the Fairlane, it's a classic and it deserves better.

[Dave_au]

Wow, I'd love to be the marketing firm for Ford Australia considering the way you guys keep jumping back to trying to push forward massive Falcon marketing campaigns.

Considering Toyota is running a $50 million dollar + ad campaign for the Aurion, and considering Ford Australia only made $143 million in the last year (puts TMCA spending in persepective doesn't it), I don't think there is much honey in the pot to start running a massive campaign for a model that is reaching the end of it's product life cycle.

Keep the marketing status quo and get ready for the next Falcon generation I'd say - I'd rather see a $80m campaign for the new falcon in 2008.

[Franky]

Originally Posted by Dave_au

Wow, I'd love to be the marketing firm for Ford Australia considering the way you guys keep jumping back to trying to push forward massive Falcon marketing campaigns.

Considering Toyota is running a $50 million dollar + ad campaign for the Aurion, and considering Ford Australia only made $143 million in the last year (puts TMCA spending in persepective doesn't it), I don't think there is much honey in the pot to start running a massive campaign for a model that is reaching the end of it's product life cycle.

Keep the marketing status quo and get ready for the next Falcon generation I'd say - I'd rather see a $80m campaign for the new falcon in 2008.

IMO Toyota's ad is very complex and complicated but it pushes basic selling points across that could be achieved with much less money. Remember people already know what a Falcon is whereas the Aurion is all new and people don't really know much about it (which is where Toyota spends all the dough getting it across)

I saw the Aurion ad about 15 mins ago and thought, wow it's like they filmed an sequence from a movie. Pretty over the top for a family car lol

[Dave_au]

Originally Posted by Franky

IMO Toyota's ad is very complex and complicated but it pushes basic selling points across that could be achieved with much less money. Remember people already know what a Falcon is whereas the Aurion is all new and people don't really know much about it (which is where Toyota spends all the dough getting it across)

I saw the Aurion ad about 15 mins ago and thought, wow it's like they filmed an sequence from a movie. Pretty over the top for a family car lol

Yeah that ad would have cost them a couple of mill probably but what I mean to say is TMCA and Holden between them have this massive marketing campaign that's probably going to be running for about the next 6 months at a similiar intensity as it has been since launch - these commercials are going to be aired rather frequently, and in print, magazines and on the web - this is where the costs are. For instance, one full colour page ad in one weekday SMH or The Age newspaper is $70,000.

[ltd]

Originally Posted by Dave_au

Wow, I'd love to be the marketing firm for Ford Australia considering the way you guys keep jumping back to trying to push forward massive Falcon marketing campaigns.

Considering Toyota is running a $50 million dollar + ad campaign for the Aurion, and considering Ford Australia only made $143 million in the last year (puts TMCA spending in persepective doesn't it), I don't think there is much honey in the pot to start running a massive campaign for a model that is reaching the end of it's product life cycle.

Keep the marketing status quo and get ready for the next Falcon generation I'd say - I'd rather see a $80m campaign for the new falcon in 2008.

Orion is at least 15 months away, doing nothing in terms of arresting diminishing sales in that period will be the death of Ford Au, as they will make huge losses. Even if they do survive it, they will then have to get the customers they lost to Holden and Toyota back or else Ford will have the Billion Dollar Blunder. Complex graphic intense ads are not the way to go, ads like the mazda one are. How much would it cost to have a little snapper head say "zoom zoom"?
Ford should advertise before and after prime time to save money, and they should also push the salespeople at the networks to give them a better rate by buying blocks of ads. TV networks are losing viewers and as such the rates should be falling in accordance - ram this fact home.

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by Yaw

The Escape has a 4 cylinder 2.3 litre Duratech engine that pulls a 1986 kg GVM car quite well.

Actually not a bad idea.

Do a little research, the Escape is lighter than the Falcon. Around 1500kg if I remember correctly. Fairly average weight for a medium soft roader. Its no rocketship either.