Ford Bold Moves Takes Bland Path

I totally agree, I was giving them a chance, but lets say this, three strikes and your out. They've gone downhill from the first episode, and have totally devolved into something meaningless from the minds of a big ad agency. It's a shame they couldn't have the balls to do what the said they were going to do, and that was have a candid documentory on the turn around of a huge company. As for their choice of car and personality? The Shelby Mustang? are they kidding? While GM's getting great youtube coverage for their powercell car: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry6w3mRm-FM

Whilst it isn't perfect, I find it a step in the right direction.

In an age where corporate transparency is hard to find (to say the least), I find their decision to open things up and to start a conversation refreshing.

I don't think it is a "faux blog" as you suggest. It is a new form of online marketing - let's call it a next generation webumentary for lack of a better term - being done by a major company at the highest level of the organization.

Did you watch any of the clips? Here are some quotes I picked out from the first one:

"Maybe we didn't care for as we should have."

"We're in trouble because we lost touch with the consumer."

"It's very easy in our own little offices to create our own idea about what it means to be competitive."

"The auto industry is in a stage of major crisis...this is a company that really could go down."

"Our pricing is irrational."

Ford executives are saying that, on camera, for all to see and react to and share.

Pretty bold, if you ask me.

And as for the contextual ads, why is that bad? I don't understand your criticism. Isn't that just smart media planning? If they're going to spend all that cash creating it, why not help people find it and support it with what is probably a very small online media buy?

They've got RSS and have enabled the video to be distributed virally, but why shouldn't they use contextual ads as well? Is all media bad? Would you have been as critical if they ran a print ad or bought space on Blogads, FM or another network to support it?

More here from my post last month:
http://www.i-boy.com/weblog/2006/06/ford-gets-bold.html

By the way, in the interests of disclosure, I have absolutely no connection to this project or any of the companies involved whatsoever.