Slogans. Gotta love ‘em. Good ones are designed to elicit emotions, specifically to communicate how a company wants you to feel about them. I’ve seen some brilliant slogans – and some really bad ones. Ford Motor Company has gone through a bunch in the past few years, some good, some…not so much. Here’s a sampling:

Ford has a better idea.

Quality is Job One.

Have you driven a Ford lately?

Drive One.

Um…yeah. Each slogan was a reaction to market conditions. “Ford has a better idea” was a reaction to the perception that Ford had become creatively bankrupt. “Quality is Job One” attempted (unsuccessfully) to make the claim that Ford was obsessed with quality. (I owned one. They weren’t.) “Have you driven a Ford lately?” was a lovely little rhetorical question with an implied closed caption – “Look…we’re sorry about all that crap we tried to sell you back in the 70′s. Give us another chance. Really.” Today, Ford’s slogan is “Drive One,” as much a command as it is a plaintive wail in the wilderness of low sales, crap design, bad management, and labor contracts destined to kill what Ford themselves doesn’t mismanage into obscurity.

As if they don’t have enough to worry about, now comes Flash of Genius, the (somewhat dramatized/mostly accurate) story of private inventor Robert Kearns, the inventor of the delay wiper. Ford, along with the rest of the “Big Three,” and most of the rest of the automotive world decided to ignore Kearns patents and simply dare him to sue them over his invention. Kearns eventually beat Ford (and Chrysler) in court, but the fight cost him his marriage, his health, and his sanity.

This movie could be yet another serious black eye for a company that has few parts of it’s body corporate left unharmed. Their response? Apparently, it’s to bury their heads in the sand. Their P.R. princes have decreed that there is no reason to respond (to a movie that equates Ford with Evil Incarnate in Corporate form), as “this case was already settled in court.”

Um…not so much.

It’s now being tried in the Court of Public Opinion. Of the two, the one that can be fatal is the Court of Public Opinion. You can appeal your way out of our legal system. Public Opinion is a much harsher mistress. No appeal. No reversals. No hope. If this movie captures the imagination of the public (no sure bet, to be certain), you’ll see Ford’s sales spin into a death spiral faster than you can say “Edsel.”

I’ve not yet seen the movie, but I followed the case in the press. Ford could have settled over and over and over again. All Kearns insisted on was an admission that it was his idea. Not unreasonable, if you ask me…after all, it WAS his idea. Ford wouldn’t budge. That’s corporate myopia at it’s worst.

If Ford was smart (which today is a lot like saying, “if Congress did it’s job”), they’d meet this movie head on, and divorce themselves from the clowns that were running Ford back in the day. Sadly, the guys at the wheel today seem to be even more clueless than those back in the 60s and 70s. WIth schmarts like this, “Have you driven a Ford lately,” is likely soon to be a question asked only of those who treasure antique autos, for Ford will join such big thinkers like Oldsmobile, Plymouth, American Motors, Studebaker, and Packard on the scrap heap of automotive history.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 4th, 2008 at 8:49 pm and is filed under marketing, media.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.