Hollywood_North GT

IMHO, somebody at Ford is smoking crack. Judging from the comments after this story, I'm not alone.

What's wrong with this company?

Evil_Capri

Here is some information relating to Automotive Advertising . .

http://www.nielsenmedia.com/monitor-...dvertising.htm

05fordgt

Nice article you posted Jason. Very insightful!! That's alot of money being spent.

BTW, love your new avatar. Koenig TT Testarossa!!!

Evil_Capri

Thanks, the Koenig Testarossa is one of my favorite cars of all time!

rocket88

I just saw an Edge commercial during the Cowboys Eagles game and was thinking about this topic. $80 million sounds like an awful lot, but when you break it down, they expect to sell 100,000 units this year and that works out to $800 per unit.

hi5.0

Whether or not the Edge is ultimately successful, I'm sure that Ford and the dealers are more than willing to pass the advertising costs along to the buyer.

rocket88

Yeah, the selfish ******. You'd swear they were in business to make a profit or something.

hi5.0

Yeah, as in pricing it or marking it up so as to not shoulder ANY of the costs on THEIR PART. Kind of like making the consumer pay directly for ALL of a price increase to make up for rising costs of energy, raw materials, labor, advertising, etc. $80million isn't chump change for any corporation - it's going to have to come from somewhere and it doesn't seem like Ford can easily spare that kind of cash outlay nowadays, either. Why does it seem like it is mainly the consumer who is most affected by "the (rising) cost of doing business?"

TomServo92

Costs of doing business ultimately get passed on to the consumer. It's done to everything you buy from bubble gum to DVDs to homes. Only in a fantasy world would it be otherwise. Might as well suck it up and deal with it.

hi5.0

Not much choice is there? I'm aware of it, but it doesn't make it any less distasteful eh?

TomServo92

No, it doesn't but whadda ya gonna do?

Hollywood_North GT

Whoa, hold on there a minute. Sadly that logic doesn't apply to all the American companies who ARE highly profitable, choose to close their factories or operations here in North America so that they can reopen in other countries where labor costs 49 cents an hour...then continue to jack up the prices on consumers in the West.

While I agree with your statement as it stands by itself, you cannot deny that there IS such a thing as greed, and there are examples of it everywhere.

I don't think this is the case of Ford corporate at this moment in history (more like survival) - however, I think this ad campaign IS an example of spending too much money on a single, perhaps poorly executed effort.

TomServo92

Let me clarify then...increases in the cost of doing business are always passed on to the consumer. The corollary to that (as you elude) is that reductions in the cost of doing business are never passed on.

Hollywood_North GT

My point with that example was that reductions in the cost of doing business also appear to get passed on to the consumer...in the way of price increases.

2005GTDELUXE

whoever wrote that article doesn't even know that Kelis brings all the boys to the yard and her milkshake is better than yours. At least FORD is in touch with it's marketing audience.

Hollywood_North GT

Too bad its marketing audience isn't in touch with IT. Isn't the Edge more of a family vehicle than a "hip-hop" conveyance?

TomServo92

I guess that would be the second corollary then?

Knight

80 million sounds like a lot but in the big money that gets changed around so much with auto makers it seems fine. If the average Edge cost 28,000 then 100,000 units would be revenue of $2.8 billion!

TomServo92

That's the gross profit. The important number is the net profit.

Knight

I didn't say profit i said revenue.