Ford Flex: Reclaiming land lost to imports, from coast to coast

[Scotsman]

Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Ford Flex turns heads
Carmaker's marketing team shows off full-size crossover across U.S.
Bryce G. Hoffman / The Detroit News

The official launch of the Ford Flex is still months away, but Ford Motor Co.'s new crossover is already turning heads where it matters most: on the Coasts.

"I've already got people showing up wanting to buy them," said Beau Boeckmann, vice president of Los Angeles' Galpin Ford, the largest Ford dealership in the world. "Cool people. People who haven't bought a Ford forever."

The Flex also drew lots of attention in New York last month during the auto show.

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That is music to Kate Pearce's ears. The marketing manager for the Flex says the new Ford seems poised to be the sort of hit the automaker was hoping for as it strains to turn around its North American auto operations.

"People are looking for something new and different, and this vehicle is really unlike anything else in the marketplace," she said. "The key is giving consumers the opportunity to see it in person."

So that is exactly what Ford is doing. After the New York auto show, the company left four prototype vehicles in the city. Ford drivers spent the next several days cruising around Manhattan to get the vehicle in front of potential customers. Every now and then, the drivers would pull over, let people get a closer look and take the opportunity to hand out the Flex's business card.

Yes, the Flex has its own business card. That's because engineers test driving early prototype models around the country often were stopped by people attracted to the vehicle's boxy silhouette who wanted to know what it was. When word got back to the marketing team, they printed up glossy cards featuring a picture of the Flex and bullet points detailing its features.

Ford will put on similar road shows in other cities before the vehicle goes on sale in June. The Flex will be on the Strip in Las Vegas later this month, then in Los Angeles.

This kind of guerilla marketing was Jim Farley's trademark when he launched Toyota Motor Corp.'s Scion brand in 2003 with a miniscule marketing budget. He took Scions to rock concerts and other venues frequented by the young consumers Toyota was targeting and parked them with an attendant to hand out brochures.

Now Farley is running sales and marketing for Ford, and is hoping to work some of the same magic with the Flex. Speaking to The Detroit News at the Los Angeles auto show in November, he called the full-size crossover "a vehicle only Ford could have produced." It is retro and modern at the same time, he said, "a marketeers dream" because of its polarizing design.

Auto analyst Erich Merkle of IRN Inc. in Grand Rapids called the Flex "fresh" and "unique."

"There are some people who really dislike it," Merkle said. "But all evidence is that there are just as many people out there who love it. You either love it or hate, and that's what you want. It's something different. It won't get lost in the sea of everything else out there on the road."

The Flex will not arrive in dealerships until the end of June, but Ford opened the order book in February and has received more than 5,000 orders from around the country. Pricing will start under $29,000.

The early interest on the Coasts is important because consumers on both sides of the country have been big import buyers, especially in California, the country's largest vehicle market.

Farley is hoping the Flex will build on the success of Ford's other new crossover, the Edge, introduced in 2006. He said the pairing of the midsize Edge and full-size Flex will prove the dynamic duo Ford needs to take the fight to the imports.

"We've been knocking them dead with the Edge," said Los Angeles dealer Boeckmann, adding that he has been averaging 80 units a month. Unfortunately, that has been offset by declining F-150 sales, but he said it shows Ford is moving in the right direction with its new crossovers.

George Pipas, head of sales analysis and reporting at Ford, said the Edge is beginning to change the game for Ford in places like California and Florida.

"Our products do have a stronger reputation in the Midwest than they do in other parts of the country," he said. "The Edge is starting to change that."

A year ago, 36 percent of Edge retail sales were in the Great Lakes region. Now, the region accounts for about 25 percent of Edge sales.

Nationwide, Edge retail sales were up about 30 percent last month, year over year. California's share of Edge sales increased from 7 percent of the total in the first three months of 2007 to more than 10 percent for the same period this year.

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll...10349/1001/BIZ