Ford


THE CASE OF SAAB AUTOMOBILE AB – From core capabilities into core rigidities – A trajectory towards demise (Part First)

Let’s leave for a post the flow of memories of managers, mechanics, racers, designers and specialized journalists to deal with how the academic world has recreated and explained an event that has left enthusiasts from all over the world and an entire nation stunned: the bankruptcy from Saab in 2011. Giacomo Buzzoni and Magnus Eklund, students of the University of Gothenburg, analysed without biases...

Remember those great Volkswagen ads?

Remember those great Volkswagen ads?
In 1959 Volkswagen was at a turning point: in the previous year it sold 150,000 Beetles in the USA, dangerously approaching the maximum result obtainable through the word-of-mouth among customers. To avoid the stagnating sales the choice is only one: to develop an advertising campaign. The DDB won the selection among 400 advertisers,until then the DDB had advertised department stores, (Israeli) airlines,...

Vintage car, historic car and “old car”…what’s the difference?

F_8V 1952-1954
For those who approach the historic automotive field not everything is easy to understand. According to the common sense you may thing that a Fiat Uno thirty year-old will always be only an old car, a Lancia Aurelia B20 or a Jaguar E type (the one of Diabolik) are, instead, collector’s cars. But it’s not so simple! To face the complex world of the historic motoring it’s better to...

Automotive factories, back to the roots?

Fiat-509
We must get over it: the automobile, as we lived it, will disappear. Today we look with curiousness at former cars, which actually were carriages to which had been applied an engine, in a few years we will look at recent cars as something incredibly old. We have grown – we who are not so young anymore – with the myth of the horse power and the sportsmanship, then we knew the qualities of...

Automobile Museums 2.0?

Alfa Museum
Today, thanks to computers, Web and Cloud we can affirm that memory is almost endless. Yet – like in Orwell’s worst nightmare – some historical elements that characterize our society, are still alive only thanks to the memory of some individuals. The risk is that they can disappear, just like the history of some car brands. The car was born 100 years ago, and we can giggle at the...

Interview with Elena Cortesi, Global Brand Pillars Communication Manager in Ford Motor Company

Elena Cortesi a Francoforte
Date of interview: February, 26 2015 Professional profile: At Ford from 2000. She has worked as Area Manager, Dealer Manager and Fleet manager, used cars and CV. Subsequently, as PR director in Italy, Elena has developed a social media strategy involving bloggers and community, becoming a benchmark in the sector. On February 2012, she assumed the position of Director, Earned and Social Media, Ford...

QNX: the future and the present of the infotainment

Maserati rear obstacle
QNX Software Systems Ltd is released by BlackBerry leading provider of operating systems, middleware, development tools and professional services for integrated systems. Audi, Siemens, General Electric, Cisco and Lockheed Martin use QNX technology for their on-board systems, medical device, industrial automation, router and more. QNX announced at the CES 2015 in Las Vegas, the last January 5th, that...

Car colors: freedom of choice?

colors cars
The Mass Customization should satisfy the desires of each individual client, preserving the typical efficiencies of the mass production, as low costs of production and sale. To complicate matters, it often happens that customers and Companies do not speak the same language, also the excess of supply is confusing to the buyers. In the age of mass customization, the color of a new car can accelerate...

Alan Mulally and Google, the odd (odd?) couple?

Alan Mulally
Does a successful manager of the mechanical sector occupy a position in the board of one of the giants of internet? The alliance may seem unusual but maybe it’s not so much! The manager transferring from a sector to another aren’t infrequent, indeed: who is writing, for instance, saw a manager transferred from the beverage sector to the publishing industry. Not surprising then as a top...

2014: First quarter Sales for FCA

Lingotto
Waiting the launch of the new business plan FCA by Marchionne about the near future, planned for 6th,May in Detroit and that in addition to confirmations and new directions for the Group’s brands, it should finally clarify the expected developments of “Alfa Romeo”, meanwhile we comment the results referring to car registrations of Chrysler Fiat Group Automobiles in the first quarter of 2014. We...

Old Europe, if you’re there knock once

Europa
Coming back to Italy after a couple of weeks spent in different European continental countries and Northern ones, I realize that during that time I never heard about Marchionne. And this is not because in the rest of the Europe nobody speaks about cars – Fiat as well- about the crisis of the sector, staff redundancies and factory closures…. But perhaps it is a bit less pressing the identification...

Downsizing inside the automotive: another hoax that vanishes

Downsizing auto
More than two years ago I instilled the doubt about the Downsizing “trend”, which was all the rage inside the automotive, and about the Economics of decline. My argument, with all humility towards leaders and excelled speakers’ opinion (who benefit JUST in saying certain declarations and not thanks the truthfulness, NOW ready to change the repertory of their interventions) was very...

Brazil and the Fiat, a 2012 record

Fiat Brazil
The Brazilian car market ended 2012 as the best year in its history, with a volume of 3,634,510 units sold (cars + LCVs), an increase of 6.1% compared to 2011. Fiat sold 838,219 vehicles, establishing the best result in its history in 36 years of presence in Brazil and once again confirming Market leader with 23.1% share (it is the eleventh in a row!), an increase of 11.1% on 2011; ahead of VW with...

CRM: the “Waterloo” of the dealers

Waterloo
2012 has been succesfull for carmakers: they all made money selling cars! GM is back # 1 in the world, followed by Toyota and Ford. Ferrari had the best result of 66 years of history. Martin Winkertorn celebrated the records in sales and profits at VW Group with a personal superbonus of 14,000,000. Fiat-Chrysler sold 4.209 million cars, with a net profit of 1.4 billion. In January 2013 has further...

Toyota Prius: world’s best selling model is hybrid!

Prius jumps to lightspeed
For the first time in the automotive history an Hybrid vehicle is the world’s best selling model, as reported by focus2move.com research team, with over 256.000 vehicles sold in the first quarter 2012, ahead of former leader, Toyota Corolla (253.000) and Ford Focus (231.000). Toyota Prius is a full hybrid electric vehicles introduced in the 1997 in the Japanese market and progressivelly launched...

In Russia Ghosn beats Marchionne 31 to 1. Nasdrovie Tovarish!

Russia
While in Italy manufacturers, importers and dealers are losing dozens of employees and millions of euro every day – and Fiat develops his worst results in the last 30 years – in Russia the Carmakers seems to play war games. The Russian market is a great opportunity for manufacturers and dealers: last year, 2,652,000 cars were sold with a growth of 39.1% over 2010. As reported by Focus...

Manufacturer Alliances: Good or bad?

manufacturer
The recent announcement by PSA and GM of their intended strategic alliance is one of many such alliances between various manufacturers. But when do these alliances start diluting brand equity? In the past the first tentative alliances were based on purchasing power formats. Then the inevitable creep sets in with manufacturers sharing platforms, major components, engines and indeed entire vehicles. There...

This is… or no?

Limousine
This is the MINI we want! This is the Fiesta we want! This is… This is the latest Fiat commercial. It could have been authored by Silvio B. himself. It would have been perfect for the Italy we experienced until a couple of weeks ago.  Too bad that it has been broadcasted just a little too late. Now everything is different. Well, may be this is a kind of wishful thinking. Anyway, the Fiat Group...

Standards! A new absurd war for dealers: the ‘retaliation’ of the OEMs.

Standards
As reported by Automotive News, Jim Peruto, a dealer in Pennsylvania, is considering – reluctantly – the purchase of a new building for his dealership. This new facility will replace the existing store that cost $20 million to build just six years ago. “Mercedes-Benz told me it was their most beautiful dealership in the world before they told me that I didn’t conform”. Mr....

Internet car sales: who know nothing, speaks. Who know things, silents…

Internetcar
We are used to the bombastic communication with which OEM and NSC floods the media when launching new industrial plans, programs, products or processes. Remember Saturn? The Opel Difference? The ‘new deal’ of the electric car? The new sales processes at FGA? Even in these days with ‘blasts of trumpets and drum rolls’, the spokesmen of Renault Italy informs the European markets...

Automotive, August 2011: STOP spitting out such nonsense!

August2011
Italian Market, August 2011: of the 70.307 total vehicles registered, more than 42% (29.929) have been matriculated during the last… 3 days of the month. From January 1st more than the 35% of the italian total registrations were developed in the last 72 hours of each month! Let us understand this strange phenomenon. Some manufacturers contacted to give an explanation for this strange phenomenon,...

Automotive communication: different roles between OEM and dealers.

OEM
Advertising and the art to manage the emotions of clients.  Advertising is considered the most powerful tool of marketing, has no limits or borders and has become an integral part of the economy in the world. Dorothy Miller the 2011 Nada Convention has analyzed this argument, noting that in the United States today, nearly 40% of car buyers do not trust most of the traditional media such as press,...

Cadillac Man: fantasy or reality? Some interesting data collected in Italy, useful… everywhere!

Cadillac man
What can happen when two very famous persons, known and loved by all becomes car salesmen? I know many car dealers and many salesmen who are ashamed to say the work they do, fearing of being compared to the ‘Cadillac man‘ of Robin Williams or to the‘Italian Car salesman’ of Robert de Niro. In Italy from a few weeks two famous character actors, Paolo Kessisoglu and Luca Bizzarri, are...

Want to sell more new cars? Listen really what women want!

woman car
Let us for a moment ‘in the shoes’ of a woman who works, manages house and children, goes to the bank, to the accountant, to a theater, in a library, and takes charge of organizing the weekend and holidays for the whole family. About this woman – in the world of automotive marketing in Italy – there is almost no trace. Yet in our country, the balance of car registrations has progressed...

An Happy…Seat?

Seat
photo credit: mnadi   It’s only been 4 months since all the major TV news and newspapers journalists spread the main points of the so-called “Referendum Marchionne”. Right or wrong most of the media trying to highlight, some in a slightly veiled way, the real change in the time table of the Fiat group workers. In short it seemed that a work timetable was going to tighten up materializing...

Glamour Volkswagen

Gruppo VW
Whenever a new reader joins this blog it looks like we are total supporter group of Germany but this is not the case. The advertising claim as “Germany technologic supremacy” used some years ago is not our bible. We are only people focused on the reality of facts and following this focus it is not avoidable to notice new ideas, projects and proposals currently coming out from Germany. For many...