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Go Further. Ford marks turnaround juncture with new slogan

Ford marks turnaround juncture with new slogan

By Bernie Woodall

Reuters

REUTERS - A history of Ford Motor Co could be told with the succession of slogans it has used over the decades - some remembered within the company as rallying cries, some more as punch lines.

Now, six years into a comeback from near collapse, the automaker has a new slogan that underscores confidence that its recovery is almost complete: "Go Further."

For an automaker with 166,000 workers worldwide and a history of riding boom into bust, the slogan is intended in part as a warning against complacency after three years of profits, executives say.

"Go Further" will be used in marketing campaigns, replacing "Drive One" in North America and "Feel the Difference" in Europe. Those slogans were coined to help overcome wariness on the part of consumers about the quality and performance of Ford cars as the car maker bounced back.

"We are at a different point now in our company's history," Jim Farley, global head of sales and marketing, told Reuters.

Ford is not the only automaker that has relied heavily on a catchy slogan. Crosstown rival Chrysler, now under the control of Italy's Fiat SpA (:FIA.MIFIA.MI), has played up both sides of its heritage with the year-old "Imported from Detroit."

At General Motors Co (NYSE:GM - NewsGM.N), former CEO Ed Whitacre was amazed in 2009 that the automaker did not have a slogan that reflected a mission statement, so he supplied one: "Design, build and sell the world's best vehicles."

But Ford, founded in 1903, has a particularly long history of using slogans meant to resonate both inside its glass-walled Dearborn, Michigan, headquarters and outside with customers. Its sloganeering goes back at least as far as 1914's "Ford: The Universal Car."

Cuvantul „Ford”, caligrafiat intr-un oval, a transformat compania cu acelasi nume intr-unul dintre brandurile de top ale lumii, al nouasprezecelea, mai...