Ford Ups The Ante on Social Media
From the backseat of a Ford Taurus of Elaine Ellis…
Ford held a meetup with bloggers to introduce the new Ford Taurus hosted by some of my favorite bloggers – Andrew Hyde, Aimee Greeblemonkey and Amber Johnson – and I got to go as a blogger. I don’t think my blog is what they were really targeting, but hey, free appetizers! Thanks Ford.
My grandfather drove a Ford Taurus, so my association with it is old people. The car was surprisingly more sleek than I would have guessed, but still had room for mobsters to hold at least three bodies. At least. The car inside was gorgeous and had great features. It seems to be a huge lead in style compared to previous models. Yet, I can’t see myself purchasing one as I prefer smaller sedans like my Civic.
The best part to my ears was the Ford PR person talked about their CEO’s focus on quality. My parents believed in buying cars and driving them into the ground. They bought American – a Ford Sable and GM station wagon – but the problems continually stacked up. Their next set of cars were a Honda Accord and Toyota Corolla. And thus, my first two cars have been Civics.
Yet the quality of Ford’s social media approach is dead on. They were triumphant with their Ford Fiesta agent program, in which my friend Jeremy Tanner is taking part. Letting small groups of bloggers make their own decisions while test driving the Ford Taurus will help play a crucial role in helping people believe that Ford is about quality. Yet to me, the true test for quality when the new drivers of Ford Taurus talk about the quality of the 2009 Taurus in 2019. That’s the true litmus test.
Photo taken without permission from Andrew Hyde
As we were leaving the meetup, I told Ef that I was going to write about it for Soci@lByte, and then he told me he was going to write about it for the HuffPo. Hello one-upmanship. But in his article, he has a great point – 16 to 19 miles per gallon isn’t acceptable in 2009. Somehow, I missed that point, but maybe because I was worried about Andrew driving down the wrong way on one ways.
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