Thursday, April 5, 2007

Funkmaster Flex For Ford

Giving a 17-year old actress a hybrid car not enough product placement news for you in the car business? Well Ford is following Honda's lead and introducing a new SUV that will be driven by a celebrity. Wondering who it is? Funkmaster Flex. That's right; Ford has realized that by having Funkmaster Flex as a spokesperson for Ford's SUVs, they will be able to capture a large chunk of the urban crowd. They are naming editions of the Expedition and Mustang after the DJ, including a vehicle known as Flex.

Ford is trying to swoop in and get more of the consumers that make up Escalade's target audience. As Halliday mentions in the article, Escalade has a very strong presence amoung the rap/ hiphop community. As big advantage Ford Expeditions have over the Escalades is that they are much cheaper, by $20,000. If the Funkmaster Flex ad campaign grabs enough positive attention from this target audience, Ford might be able to easily pull ahead of its competitor with its lower price.

The sales of the Expeditions are already significantly improving with an increase of 8.2% from last January/February to this January/February. I'm interested to see how much the sales improve after Funkmaster Flex's cars are introduced. Another great way that Ford is hitting this new promotional idea home is by being the mains sponsor on the "Car Wars" show on ESPN2. The event is hosted by Funkmaster Flex and will have 6 episodes featuring the Expeditions.

If you want to read Jean Halliday's article, go to http://adage.com/article?article_id=115872

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