As Ford Falls Apart, It Promotes Its Values

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Sep 10, 9:15AM EDT

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The same day Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) issued yet another recall, it announced a new global marketing campaign.
There goes tens of millions more dollars poorly spent.

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As Ford Falls Apart, It Promotes Its Values — © fredrocko / iStock Unreleased via Getty Images

The same day Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F | F Price Prediction) announced its staggering 104th recall of the year, the company said it would start a global marketing campaign. It will likely cost tens of millions of dollars, which is money poorly spent.

The new tag line is Ready Set Ford. A more fitting one might be “Ready Set Recall” or “Ready Set Warranty Costs.” This will be the automaker’s first global campaign in 15 years, and it comes at a time when Ford has set an annual recall record and will lose $5 billion this year on electric vehicles (EVs). It is also worried that Chinese EVs could wreck the company. CEO Jim Farley has called them an “existential threat.”

Part of the message is that “Not every brand is going to survive the next decade and meet the evolved needs of today’s customers.” This is clearly true of Ford’s ability to survive. Its EU sales are weak. It is struggling in China. In the United States, it is a gasoline-powered car company in what it calls an EV-driven future. Globally, it is being flanked in the EV business by China’s BYD, which makes much better EVs than Ford does.

The marketing message goes on to say, “It’s our public commitment to you that our capability, our passion, and our innovation will match your own.” That is, if your car is not recalled.

Lisa Materazzo, Ford’s global chief marketing officer, crafted the message with a tin ear. It ends “We believe people are more capable than they think — they just need a spark. Ford is here to be that spark!” Ford is actually here to recall your car so you can sit in a dealership while it is repaired.

Several of the world’s huge car companies are broken, including Stellantis and Nissan. Ford is also on the list.

Ford Falls Far Behind Tesla and GM in Software

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.