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Ford slowly targeting women


For decades, the name Ford has meant `Falcon’ … but a massive overhaul is going on behind the Blue Oval’s doors to change that.

Ford has always strived hard to keep the Falcon as the brand’s halo nameplate — spearheaded by strategies like its presence in V8 supercars.

But with the market’s move away from large cars over the past couple of years, the company wants to move perception of the badge to more of a family and female-friendly position.

And that means changing every detail about how Ford presents itself, from expensive advertising campaigns down to the last piece of paper in the stationery cupboard, says the company’s marketing general manager, Rebecca Martin. “One of the first things I did when I started in the job (late in 2005), was to yank the Falcon Ute ads off TV,” Martin says.

Research showed the advertisements – first featuring a town seemingly populated only by women with impressive cleavages, all of whom were magnetised by the `pulling power’of the Ute, and the sequel showing a town full of similarly fascinated canines that the ute driver declined to give a lift to because `nah, mate … they’re dogs’ – were deterring women and overshadowing the brand.

“Women felt alienated by the ads, which had the impact of them considering Ford to be a blokey brand,” Martin says.

“And the nameplate advertising was overshadowing the brand. So when people thought of Ford, they just thought of Falcon."

"That sent mixed messages when we wanted to sell small and light cars, and we knew we had to change that perception. "

“We want to position ourselves as being more family oriented and female-friendly.” Martin says this has prompted an exhaustive review of everything Ford does to communicate its brand.

“We are looking at every point of contact with the public – every touch point – from all the campaigns down to things like letterheads and even the receptionists and the production line,” she says.

“This will flow through to the showrooms, and we’ll be ramping up sales training too.” Martin knows that overturing decades of imprinted `blokiness’ won’t be an easy task or a quick one.

“We’ve got no illusions that this will be easy. And it certainly won’t happen overnight. We’re thinking it will take at least five years … maybe ten,” she says.

"It’s going to take a mindset change at all levels of the company.”

As part of the overhaul, the new Falcon Ute ad also shows a `bloke’s dream town’ but rather than hordes of cleavage-laden models, it has newspaper boys that deliver kebabs, tools shops and `Beer: the musical’.

“It’s a campaign women can laugh at too,” Martin says.