Ford Bold Moves has veered off its stated bold course and become a very glorified PR effort promoting big engines and fast cars. And Community Buzz continues its self-congratulatory path. I guess auto blogs are interested in this type of stuff. Yawn. Sure doesn’t seem like the promised paradigm shift to transparency or customer involvement.
The campaign’s promise:
“Bold Moves” puts you at the heart of the story, letting you engage, debate, and get involved in what’s happening at Ford right now.”
Not so far….
They even run a contextual ad in the search results for “Ford Bold Moves” on Technorati:
BOLD MOVES, THE FUTURE OF FORD: Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time. www.fordboldmoves.com
While the intent to be more open may be there, it’s clear that Ford and other big companies are having a very hard time getting their heads around the value of social media and customer involvement.
Why spend all this money on Bold Moves– clearly Ford is spending millions — to produce a bunch of video news releases and a faux blog?
Why not just ask your customers — what are your suggestions for turning Ford around? And then listen, respond, and change. Rinse, repeat.
From caveat emptor to caveat venditor
I don’t think it’s an understatement to say there is a seismic shift underway in the way people and commercial enterprises buy and sell goods and services. I’m not simply talking about e-commerce on the good old Internet. I’m talking
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.