Slow Focus sales force Ford into action

FORD Australia has been forced to change its small-car advertising strategy in a concerted bid to reverse a disturbing sales decline for Focus, which has failed to capitalise on the trend to small cars.

With Ford’s total market share in Australia dropping to 9.2 per cent in October – its lowest share in living memory – the Blue Oval is fighting for respectability, and the man at the battlefront is sales and marketing chief Mark Winslow.

Mr Winslow could not say if Ford’s market share had ever been so low in its history and – while noting that 10 per cent in the present boom market represents strong overall volume – he is still unhappy about the situation.

“Do we think it’s good enough? Absolutely not. We’re much better than a 10 per cent market share,” he told GoAuto last week.

Noting that large-car sales had gone from 23 per cent of the market two years ago to just 13 per cent this year – a worrying trend ahead of the all-important “Orion” Falcon launch next year – Mr Winslow said it was vital for Ford to secure a long-term stake in the growing small- and light-car markets with Focus and Fiesta.

However, Focus sales last month dropped by some 37.9 per cent compared to the same month last year, slipping below 1000 sales, while Toyota Corolla sales increased 10.8 per cent for the month and the Mazda3 was up by some 20.9 per cent.

Not only did the Focus lose ground to Corolla and Mazda, but in the last two months it dropped behind the Mitsubishi Lancer, Nissan Tiida and Holden Astra.

Mr Winslow conceded that Ford Australia had essentially shot itself in the foot on two counts – by not having enough base Focus CL models in stock and by running a three-month general brand campaign instead of retail advertisements.

“It was completely our fault,” said Mr Winslow. “We didn’t order in the right specification, so we dropped the ball.



“We didn’t have enough $19,990 CL cars on the ground. Basically, we had all sorts of value packs out there (like) our safety pack. That’s a supply issue.

“There are 23 competitors in that (small-car) market, so those people want to come to the dealership and they virtually want to drive away with the car, and we weren’t able to (provide that).”

Mr Winslow said the problem had been identified early and CL stock is now on hand.

Regarding the recent advertising campaign – which features various Focus and Fiesta models as well as customer types under the slogan “Everyone’s Journey is Different” – Mr Winslow was unapologetic, but admitted it was a mistake to put all its eggs in one general basket.

“What we’ve been doing with our small cars advertising is going with a brand bent rather than retail advertising,” he said.

“All our research is telling us that we have very good cars – it’s very well specified, it’s competitive with price, it more than compares on a feature-benefit basis with Mazda3s and Corollas – but people really need to be told about the Ford brand in small cars, so we came up with the ‘Everyone’s Journey is Different’ campaign, which is very much a brand ad as opposed to a retail/merchandising ad. We’ve been running that for the last 90 days.

“We look at our ad tracking and it’s really doing a lot for us in terms of people recognising our small-car range, but it probably doesn’t have the call to action – we’re not saying enough about the product, so our dealers are telling us that you’ve got a great story and you need to tell it more succinctly, so that’s what we’ll be doing.”

Although Mr Winslow said there will now be more ‘Focus’ on retail advertising, he defended the brand campaign and said it will continue.

“The core problem we had is that Falcon has been so strong for us for the last 50 years, so when you do market research you say, ‘What are people’s perceptions?’, and (they say), ‘I know about Falcon and I know about Territory, but I don’t know much about small cars’.

“So the way we addressed that research was to go into a brand campaign saying everyone’s journey is different, here are our range of small cars. It doesn’t yell price and it doesn’t yell we’ve got DSC and Corolla hasn’t. It’s more: ‘Here is our range of small cars for everybody’s wants and needs’.

“We will continue to do that because we need to continue to do it and the research shows that it is working, but what we need to do now is tell the comparative features and benefits versus Corolla and Mazda3. And we stand up very, very well – but our dealers are saying you’ve got to go and tell people.

“The sales closing rates in our dealerships are very, very strong. People come in on Focus and they generally leave with a car. That’s actually from telling people about the car, about the features and benefits, and how it compares. So we have to do those two things, tell people about the brand but really tell them about the product.”

Mr Winslow is happy with the strength of the Ford national dealer network, but admits that the company is still “teaching” dealers how to sell cars like Fiesta, Focus and the new Mondeo after years of having a comparatively easy time selling large cars in a very small field of competitors.

“Our business has been built on large cars and SUVs so we’ve had to ‘transition’ our dealers,” he noted.

“Are we happy? No, we’re not. Do we think our dealers are good? Yes, we do. Can we do better? Yes. And do we have training in place to do that? Yes, we do. Only time will tell how successful we are.”

He is unconcerned, though, about the decision to shift from cheap Korean vehicles to more expensive sources at a time when Holden has gone in the opposite direction, swapping its European Barina, Astra and Vectra for Daewoo-sourced models.

“You’ve got some competitors saying, ‘OK, I’m going to sell on price and I’m going to source from somewhere where I can get a low price’.

“We made the decision a number of years ago to go with European, German-engineered, high-quality, high features and that’s where we are in the marketplace. We think that, longer term, that will build the Ford brand a lot better than discounted cars.

“We’re selling Fiesta and Focus as competitively as we can. If you have a look at where we are with a CL Focus versus a Corolla and you add up the features and put a price on those features, then we are very competitive at $19,990. Very competitive versus Mazda3, more than competitive versus Corolla, very competitive versus Lancer.

“We made a very clear choice we don’t want to go down the $17,990 path. We believe we have a quality car.

“The market has changed – it’s now one-third light and small cars – you have to be in it for the long-term and I don’t think you can guarantee you’ll be in it for the long term if the only way you can drive volume is by discounting the vehicle. I may be proved wrong.

“You have a look at Toyota sales and a very high percentage of their sales occur at the base level whereas if you look at Mazda3 sales – I know they’ve just dropped their prices at their base level, but a large percentage of their sales occur at sort of two-thirds of the way up their price scale because they’ve got so much repeat purchases. The Mazda3 and the Mazda 323 before it have been around for 20 years that I can remember, so their repeat purchase is very, very high.

“Being a third of the market, you cannot afford not to be in this market. One of Ford’s great advantages is its dealer network. If we are to maintain that distribution network, not competing actively and successfully in a third of the market just isn’t an option. So we’ll keep at it till we get it right.”