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Ford Debuts New F-150 Marketing Campaign - Ford Trucks

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“With less of its own lard to move around, it can move more of yours.” - Such a great line.

 

nice job on the marketing campaign. It's good that they avoided the things that they don't offer such as the best in class MPG's, a WiFi hotspot or a diesel engine.

 

It's just a shame it's not working (The marketing).....and they really don't know what to do about it either.

As I was invited to go drive the new F150 (like everybody else)....afterwards I opened the hood, they had a tech guy there to "answer questions'......as I got the engine tour, when he was all done, I started asking questions.......which were all answered very professionally......and when I was asked "what I thought"...well, I was polite but direct.....the concerns I had for drivetrain complexity, repair costs & maintenance....the tech said that I was not the 1st to bring all that up......

 

Considering the amount of trucks that they sell, I'm not sure if the marketing is "not working." It might not be convincing to you or I, but Joe Consumer is still buying a crap-ton of these trucks.

While not having a diesel is a black mark, as well as some of the technology (which will be fixed with Sync 3 for 2016 model year), they really are shying away from fuel economy.

I don't think they need to worry about it right now, with gas so cheap. But it won't stay cheap forever and Ford won't be able to tout how much more expensive the Ram is with the diesel engine when gas is back to $4/gallon.

 

Really strange statement to say the marketing "isn't working". That would imply that they aren't selling these very quickly. It'll be months before we have useful sales figures, but I'm pretty sure this truck will remain the sales leader.

 

I was actually watching a few car shows over the weekend....Autoline, Motorweek (my less than favorite), etc....Autoline had 3 PR people on there....and when it came to Ford, the moderator started it with.....the marketing campaign isn't going as well as Ford had thought....and the 3 "experts" agreed....it came up again in the weekend LA Times too...

While the trucks are still selling, GM & Dodge are gaining substantial ground where ford was....and the mustang...they are selling about 12 trucks for each mustang.......a very poor showing, and Lincoln, is still lost trying to "find itself".

When you figure that in it's 1st year, the original Mustang sold 680,989 vehicles and in an economic condition not far different than what we have today, and look at the current mustang annual sales #'s.....they are not even close..........

IMHO, although the engineers & designers are clearly pushing the envelope, overall, I don't think they really have a clue about what their market wants today or even tomorrow......they may be trying to create that.....and most company's who have competitors who have tried that in history, while setting the trends, completely lost their own market, handing customers over to their competitors.......

Just one guys opinion............

 

I'm certainly no industry expert, but I would bet that Ford isn't producing as many of these trucks in Q4-2014 and Q1-2015 due to the huge retooling at both truck plants. IMO, we won't know the true story until both plants have been going full-out for a while.

 

Ford did the same thing with the 2009 F-150 launch. They literally trickled the truck to market in Dec/Jan while the competitors already had their '09's up and running for three months by then.

The 1964/65 Mustang is a poor example to illustrate a sales comparison to the 2015 Mustang. Back then we didn't have Hyundia, Kia, Nissan, Toy, Honda and Mazda. None of the big three didn't have as many offerings and you still had IH scouts, AMC products and of course their Jeep.

Trucks back then were built for work and lacked all refinements and comforts of today's trucks leaving a family to chose a sedan for comfort while the truck did the heavy lifting.

With these commercials I was left wanting a little more but Ford did hit the high points of the truck and avoided it's weaknesses.

Anyone here been to a Ford dealer lately? All the dealers around here are literally jammed with 2014 trucks. This was Ford's plan all along to pad their inventory so they could get the 2015 to market after a major retooling. They kind of hurt themselves in this respect when the shut down the Norfolk assembly plant leaving just two plants to support America's need.

 

I heard sometime back in April or May that they were having a lot of issues getting the new equipment working or something which was why it took so long for the trucks to actually make it to the dealer ships. But that was just rumors I heard.

I think the best time to know what this new redesign F150 can do will be in a year and a half when the new transmissions roll out. Then maybe then we can get a better idea of what these trucks are really capable of doing. Its also when the redesign F650/750 trucks roll out as well. I bet as the next couple of years roll by Ford will keep adding Aluminum and taking away steel from these trucks where ever possible to keep them meeting new standards. It'll be interesting on how these next few months and years will play out.

 

Ford lost some ground due to the fact they lost production capacity by having to retool a complete factory and now they have the second factory that will need to be retooled as well. So for the near term Ford production capacity is at 50% and that will reflect on the units sold.

 

You are tooo young to remember this, but yes, we had Sunbeam, Toyota (yes the corolla), Datsun, Audi, Simca (a fairly popular, disposable type car in the 60's), VW, Triumph, MG, Volvo, and BMW (which was...I know hard to believe.... a VW low end competitor.....kinda similar to the Karman Ghia), Ford had the Falcon series line-up which was literally what you today would call a "Kia", GM had the Opel & Chev II...which was their answer to Ford's Falcon lineup....

even the porsche....were really not considered high performance cars but "sports cars".......and with regards to the trucks....there was the "Custom Cabs" and the "Ranger" trim package (seen later)

and the Corvette.....to put things in perspective....In 1967....."Sales slipped over 15%, to 22,940 (8,504 coupes, off close to 15%, and 14,436 convertibles, down nearly 19%"
Citation- Flory, Jr., J. "Kelly" (2004). American Cars, 1960–1972

Now don't laugh tooo hard, but while there were many factors involved in this (including Chevs decision not to participate $ in racing programs with the vette & Ford was pushing the Shelby & Holman-Moody teams with the stangs, torinos, & cyclones), one of the hits was from the T-Bird.....more HP, seated 4, had every lux option you could imagine (as compared to the vette) and for whatever reason, drew buyers away from the vette's

and if you compare the features of the higher end (non-luxury) car options, they paralleled the trucks for the day.

 

^^^^^

LOL I remember all of those that you mentioned. Living in Maine, many of those cars weren't practical or even affordable.

But anyway, I get your very consistent point and I don't completely disagree with you. I'd love to have my '86 F-150 XL with the inline six back in my driveway. It's just not what people want anymore.

 

Ya know...I saw my ol 1990 F150 the other day......XLT Lariet, SB/SWB, flight bench seat, 300 cid & 5 speed w/handling package, Bright Regatta Blue.......which Ford repainted in the mid 90's for me (defective paint).....it still looks good, sounded good (dropped the mufflers and ran duel tailpipes out the back with chrome tips)....and the guy has kept it up.....

Yeah, some days I do miss the simplicity of that truck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
let me look for a pic!

ahah- found em!

 

Man I wish I could find a truck that clean here in Minnesota. Wish they were that stupid simple to work on too. Oh well can't wait to get a hold of one of those old engines.