Forbes: Ford Looks To Family For New Pitchman

New York, Forbes.com published the following story.

The media use words like affable and convincing to describe him. He is a champion of both his white- and blue-collar employees. Even environmentalists love him.

Ford Motor is now hoping family scion-turned-chief executive William C. Ford Jr. will be able to win over the final, and most crucial, frontier: the American consumer.

The Wall Street Journal today said William Ford would appear in a series of TV ads that will begin airing this summer. The commercials will focus on Ford's history, its racing legacy and its commitment to the environment, according to Jason Vines, Ford's former vice president of communications who has seen preliminary versions of the ads.

"It's a great idea. He is Ford. His name is on the building," says Vines, who is now a partner at Washington, D.C.-based public relations firm Stratacomm. The Ford name still holds significant real estate in the American consciousness, Vines argues. This is evidenced by the vast number of Americans who are convinced Henry Ford invented the automobile. (He didn't: Though the real father of the automobile is hard to pinpoint, almost everyone agrees he was European.) "Ford is like America's monarchy," Vines says.

Bill Ford has a lot of buffing to do on the historic brand. The country's second-largest car company has shuttered several plants and laid off about 30,000 employees. The 2000 Ford Explorer rollover scandal still taints the name. The company has run in the red for three consecutive quarters, accumulating a total loss of $3.06 billion in 2001.

Things didn't go so well the last time the firm put its CEO in front of the camera. Ford spent approximately $500 million in 2000 to try to improve its appearance after the Ford Explorer imbroglio. The company used William Ford's predecessor, the deposed Jacques Nasser, to calm public worries. But Nasser was blasted by ad critics as being too rigid. They also said Nasser's Australian accent did not hit the mark for the American audience.

Thanks to his last name, Bill Ford does not have the job security worries Nasser had to deal with. Whether he is successful in communicating to the public is a different story.