Ford has decided to make things work with agility and achieve the desired goal at the earliest. In a move to maintain the trend of aggressive competition for which the American car makers have been known, Ford has geared up things for its marketing initiatives and advertisement campaigns. Its latest move in this context is the 'Swap Your Drive' campaign, wherein Ford India has recorded the testimonies of users who swapped their vehicles with a Ford car for a week. The users were driving rival car brands such as Maruti Swift, Tata Indigo and Toyota Fortuner before they swapped it with Ford vehicles.
It is undoubtedly the first time when any car maker has directly mentioned the names of the rival brands in its advertisements. It is believed that the aggressive and bold ad campaign aims at popularising its claims of superior fuel economy, drive experience and advanced technology.
Ford however confirms that the campaign does not desire to target any of its rivals, rather aims at sharing the driving experience of the Ford car users after they swapped their cars for a week.
Ford India Vice-President (Marketing) Anurag Mehrotra communicated that the strategy works as simple as any other promotional tool. He was quoted as saying, "Every manufacturer has its product strengths and it communicates those using creative media. We have chosen the path of using real people and real experiences in our communication, which makes it more authentic and credible," says. However, according to industry experts, the hard hitting campaign is being released in the wake of a slowing down car market. Maruti Suzuki and Toyota did not involve themselves in the issue as of now.
Rakesh Batra, partner and Head of Automobile Practice at Ernst & Young said that "Carmakers are doing whatever possible to boost sales. They are either resorting to aggressive discounts and offers or aggressive advertisements." As a matter of fact, the world's second-fastest growing car market has been facing the crunch of stagnation due to high interest rates, rising fuel price and negative consumer sentiments. After growing at a staggering rate of 30 percent last fiscal, the Indian car market lost its way this year. Sales figure showed no signs of improvement and dropped quite badly for two consecutive months. A fall of 15.7 percent in July and 5.7% in August was registered.
While Ford has created a record for being the first car maker to address its rivals directly in an ad campaign, Indian vehicle makers too, are in no mood to face the heat and have become more aggressive to deal with this approach.
A few months after Bajaj targeted directly at the Japanese manufacturers, it was the turn of Tata Motors to take on the Japanese carmakers with its advertisement for Manza. It shows a few engineers of a Japanese carmaker being taken to a secret chamber where an executive, standing next to a Manza Elan, puts some difficult questions in front of his team members, who have no answers.
Thus, Ford’s latest drive has added more relevance to the use of such campaigns; however, its effect is yet to be seen.
