Team Spirit - Ford Motor Web partnerships - Brief Article

Brandweek, Nov 8, 1999 by Roberta Bernstein

Ford, with two of its Web partnerships in place, finds the road less traveled is no longer the Net.

If there's one thing for sure about marketing on the Internet, it's that it beats the pants off print brochures and advertorials. Put a catalog of goods online and companies can track data, ease transactions and target demographics. Become a sponsor, and companies can tailor content and create links that theoretically brand a product and return the user, again and again, to point of purchase. This is the stuff marketing dreams are made of. It makes sense, then, that the automotive industry, rarely accused of cutting-edge anything, has jumped on the Web in a big way.

Ford, like other auto manufacturers, is aggressively pursuing online marketing--last summer it shifted $100 million of its 2000 print budget, for instance, into media including the Web. It went live almost a year ago with ford.com and its online consumer-connect strategy, Ford Connections. It also signed on to two high-profile online strategic partnerships, one with women-focused iVillage, the other Digital Entertainment Network, to which David Ropes, director of Ford's corporate advertising and integrated marketing group, referred as the first pegs in a Ford "virtual mall" [Adweek, May 3,1999]. At the time, the iVillage partnership had just launched, and the exclusive automotive sponsorship on Gen-Y site DEN recently had been announced.

Then, in September, Ford announced equity participation in an unnamed Microsoft Network/CarPoint entity designed to develop technology solutions for consumers, as well as the establishment of a new global enterprise, "e-unit," to connect its global consumers. Next, in a headline-making move, the company aired a commercial simultaneously on dozens of national and panregional TV networks, as well as on two Web sites, ford.com and broadcast.com. That bold stroke made its live Focus TV ads, which broke on the MTV Video Music Awards in September, look almost pedestrian.

"We don't want to be late in the game if we can help it," says Thor Ibsen, vice president of consumer e-commerce for North America, Ford's Consumer Connect Group, of the company's partnership push. "We want to create unique relationships so we can learn together."

With so much of its energy being expended on the Net, IQ felt Ford's interest warranted closer observation. For one thing, what, exactly, has Ford learned? And how fast, anyway, do things move in this new fast world once the ink is dry? We talked with Ford and its multitude of players to see where things now stand.

CYBER QUEEN CLOUT

The two-year, $5 million Ford/iVillage deal begat heavy Ford presence on the female-focused site. The sponsorship speaks both to women's clout in the car-purchasing arena and to the savvy marketing wiles of iVillage. The site, which in September had 4,289,000 unique visitors, according to Media Metrix, was an early player in integrated online sponsorships, and operates under the premise that women appreciate the Internet's efficiencies, especially the ability to purchase goods online.

"Ford has three goals," explains Wendy Johnston, business manager of Ford's Internet and New Media group. "To learn more about what women want; to build trust with Ford Motor Co.; and to present to the public that we're a company with [different] brands. And, of course, we would love to drive traffic back to the corporate site."

Ford's trademark script logo heads and bottoms iVillage's Ford-sponsored Women's Auto Center (WAC) area, which consumers find on the home page's "Quick Click" toolbar. (Ford reciprocates by multiple iVillage links on its own sites.) An online iVillage poll helped determine which categories would be featured. These include driving and safety; maintenance and emergencies; and buying and leasing. Recently added was the environmentally friendly category "drive economically."

A popular area on WAC, part and parcel of Ford's getting-to-know-you goal, is "Design Your Dream Car." According to Johnston, it's "where two-way communication comes into play ... and it's research we can feed back to our development areas."

The category has had some concrete results. Last week, for instance, Ford unveiled a car at the Specialty Equipment Marketers Association in Las Vegas--an annual confab that showcases aftermarket products for the auto industry--with a prototype vehicle customized with features submitted to "Dream Car." The car includes tires that run for several hundred miles after a flat; PC and cellular phone connection; and remote-start capability, so drivers can warm up or cool off their cars before even stepping near them.

The "Dream Car" area also is a way for Ford to focus on brands. Currently being highlighted is the Ford Focus, a new car the company is pushing big time this year. (Available as a hatchback, sedan or station wagon, it launched in Europe last year and in the U.S. last month; a two-year advertising push behind the brand broke last summer from J. Walter Thompson.) While there's no immediate Ford Focus presence when clicking on the "Dream Car" link, the results of each visitor's "Dream Car" appear in a special feature with a heavy Focus presence called "Your dreams in focus." (Marketing also includes a Ford Focus Web site, Focus247.com, which requires the latest version of Shockwave to view.)