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Marketing and Digital Future - Ford Motor Company

Article · March 2020

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 1. Introduction
1.1 Ford Motor Company UK

Ford Motor Company is known as the 5th largest automobile manufacturer in the world and
the biggest motor company in the UK that has over 550 authorizations and seven locations.
Ford in Britain holds one of the Europe’s largest car plants (Ford in Britain, 2011). Ford
holds an Annual revenue of $160.33 billion and a Market capitalization of $33.46 billion
(Parker, 2019).

Figure 1 : Key Facts about Ford Motor

Company.

1.2 Project Objectives

This report will indulge the theoretical underpinnings, strategies and tactics of marketing,
strategies in order to develop a digital marketing strategy for Ford Motor Company UK. The
main objective of this report would be to increase sales of Ford branded automobiles in the
UK over the next 24 months. This will result in,

 An increase in Ford sales within the next 2 years

 Brand awareness of Ford’s BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle)
 Public awareness of Ford’s Eco-friendly automobiles.

The key areas, Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning and Digital Market Mix would be
covered by this digital marketing plan of Ford.
 2. Market Research
2.1. External and Internal market analysis
2.1.1. Fuel Market and Market Share

Figure 2 : Year to date Fuel Market of the UK

According to the (Department,

2020), Ford held a higher potion
(10.1%) of the United Kingdom’s car
market and in 2019 Ford Fiesta was
known as the best selling (77,833
units) car model in the UK.

Figure 3 : Ford's UK Market Share

Figure 4 : Leading 10 car models in

the UK in 2019
 2.1.2. BEV Market Competition

Company BEV Competition summary

Ford yes Produce 5000 – 10,000 BEVs annually.

BMV yes Produce 500 MINI-Es. Direct competition for

Ford’s BEVs.
Audi yes Limited, minor production. Direct competition
for Ford’s BEVs
Chrysler yes Low production. Substitute competition for
Ford’s BEVs
Nissan Yes Serious production of LEAF. Significantly
direct competition for Ford’s BEVs.

Volkswagen Yes Unknown production output objects. Likely

significant competition for Ford’s BEVs.
Th!nk Yes Company experiencing serious issues
(bankruptcy).
Mitsubishi No No public attention in BEVs. Currently
investing on hybrid vehicles.

Fisker No Focused on plug-in hybrid vehicles.

(Ford SMART Mobility. Digital Marketing Strategy)

2.1.3. SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis of Ford Motor Company Britain (Rodrigo, 2012).

Strengths of Ford Weakness of Ford

Solid brand awareness Sales weakening

Good reputation amongst clients
Loyal customers
Effective online marketing
Innovative and strong business ideas
Limited profit and revenue due to
dependence
Weak financial management
Extremely large accountability
 Opportunities of Ford Threats of Ford

Ability to reduce debts Fierce competition in the market

Solid BEV market High raw material price
Eco-friendly automobiles High unprocessed materials
Digital marketing Rapid changes in the automobile industry
Increase customer awareness Economical uncertainties

2.1.4. PEST Analysis

Political Factors :

The imminent exit of the UK from Brexit. This can act as a negative point in importing parts
from car plants like German Ford Werke Saarlouis, Spain Ford Almussafes and so on due to
regeocentric rules and regulations. The government of UK and stakeholders of Ford can have
influence over the company policies. Regional and political relations, Labour unions, Fuel
trade flows and the UK government rules and regulations are some political factors that are to
be considered when building a digital marketing strategy (Fei Xiao, 2012).

Economical Factors :
Growth of sales and Ford foreign markets, eg: Turkey and Hungary markets. National income
of the Ford Britain workers and the UK energy can be included in this. Budgetary and
marketing plans can be affected by economic crisis (Todd Bailey, 2016). Inflation rates have
a major impact on the automotive industry where as it can lead the company into bankruptcy
[closure of UK Ford Bridgend car plant (Jolly, 2019)].

Social Factors :
Enhancement of demand for BEV automobiles can be taken as an opportunity for Ford UK.
Consumer attitude, travel habits of the consumer, demographic changes are few social factors
that can be revealed by the customer (Anastasia Christodoulou, 2019). Economical levels of
the society can be determined by the social factors, as an example: person with a high salary
will purchase a luxury and an expensive automobile, whereas another person will purchase a
vehicle that will fit his/ her salary level.
Technological Factors :

Technology is the main factor that assists the automobile industry (Kumar, 2016). The
revolution of vehicle (liquid fuel to hybrid, hybrid to electric) has taken place due to day by
day advancement of technology. Technology supports sectors like Marketing, supply chain
management and IT in an organization as to achieve the company goal and in gaining a
competitive edge. By using the technology automobile companies can introduce safer, fuel
efficient and well accessorized automobiles to the growing market (Ed Zielonka, 2012).

3. STP
3.1. Ford Market Segmentation

Geographic Segmentation

Countries like UK should consider about their geographical aspects like nations, regions,
weather and so on when it comes to the market segmentation (Timothy J. Sturgeon, 2010).
Most of the customers consider about the fuel consumption and the impact to the
environment when purchasing a vehicle. Therefore, when it comes to BEV (Battery Electric
Vehicles) it’s better to focus on the eco-friendliness towards the environment and target the
upper-class levels of the UK (Market segmentation example for cars)

Demographic Segmentation

Based on the UK market Ford can target

capital cities where customers earn a high
salary and where their dealerships have been
deliberately placed in order to take full
advantage of the targeted customers
(Structure of UK car market, 2016).
According to (Driver Gender, 2020), 81% of
males and 70% of females hold UK driving
licenses.

Figure 5 : Demographic characteristics of UK

 Ford focuses on ladies, young generation and on people
with average income. Also, it is beneficial for Ford if they
make aware the young people of UK about their Eco-friendly
automobiles (Benjamin K. Sovacoolab, 2018).

Psychographic Segmentation
Psychographic segmentation depends on consumer’s personality characteristics and social
class. It can be categorized under consistency, interior space and robustness (Elizabeth,
2020). Ford Fiesta was known as the most selling model in the UK, it is due to the reasonable
price of Ford Fiesta. The new battery electric Ford Mustang Mach-E models are being
targeted at the rich social class.

Behavioral Segmentation

Behavioral segmentation can be determined on the consumer’s attitude, knowledge, usage

rate and so on. In addition to these, it assists in determining the consumer loyalty. According
to DDB research conducted by (Structure of UK car market, 2016) 28% of Ford’s consumers
purchase the same product of ford due to its safety, interior space, and low fuel consumption.
Ford seeking to obtain rewards from their customers assists them in successfully targeting the
customers whom they are focused on (Arnomataarnoh, 2014).

3.2. Ford Market targeting

Market targeting assists in developing the brand name, products and services (Newberry,
2018). According to the market segmentation, its best for Ford to target FORD FIESTA and
Ford Battery Electrics automobiles due to its niche market. It demonstrates a high sale in
Ford Fiesta as 18 – 25-year-old ladies and teenagers are targeted to this model.

Where as it can be the eco-friendliness of battery electric vehicles of Ford (no

environmental pollution caused). Most of the customers consider about the fuel consumption
and the impact to the environment before purchasing a vehicle. Therefore, Ford can target on
this crowd as well. As to the market segments, Ford Motor Company can target on the luxury
vehicle buyers who has a high income, high social class and high personality. These
customers
would love to purchase Ford’s luxury automobiles like, Ford Lincoln, Ford Mustang Mach-E
and Ford Mustang,

3.3. Ford Market Positioning

According to (Meade, 2017), pricing policies and manufacture ranges are the two things that
has to be considered in product positioning. Based on Ford market segmenting and
positioning, Ford’s battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and Ford’s eco-friendly automobiles can
be positioned according to the pricing strategies, high-technology that has been used to
manufacture and as to the minds of the target customers.

Ford’s automobiles signify high quality, low price, attractive and eco-friendly
alternatives. Positioning depicts various customers interests, needs and wants in a vehicle
where the company tries the best to achieve those customer expectations.

4. Marketing Mix
4.1. Product and Price Strategy

Product Strategy
Product is anything tangible or intangible that can be purchased from the market. Under
product strategy, branding, designing and
features can be taken. When it comes to
branding, the “Centennial Blue Oval” of Ford
(History of the Ford Logo (Blue Oval))
determines the price and value. The product
designing of Ford battery electric vehicles
contains a kinetic design that ensures the
comfortability of the passenger. Ford eco-
friendly automobiles and BEVs contain
Figure 6 : “Centennial Blue Oval” of Ford many features like, electronic stability programs

with traction control systems, fuel efficiency, 6-speed power shift automatic
transmissions, seductive centre consoles and so on (Company).
 Pricing Strategy

Ford Motor Company has used new

pricing strategies called “Blue Tag”.
As an example, the pricing of ford
Fiesta differs between 6% - 15%.
Penetration pricing and Price
skimming are the two known pricing
strategies that are being followed by
the Ford (Letha, 2013).
Figure 7 : Ford "Blue Tag"
The customers of ford
expect excellent features and quality performance in BEVs for affordable prices (Cao, 2014).
The estimated price of brand-new Ford BEVs will range from £35,160 (Company, SELECT
YOUR MODEL).

5. Digital Market Mix

5.1. Digital Marketing Communication Mix

Advertising Strategy

Advertising is the main digital method of increasing the sales, brand awareness and public
awareness of eco-friendly automobiles. Ford can invest on Pay-Per-Click advertisements,
display advertisements and on social media advertisements.

Public Relations Strategy

Public relation is a good method of building a good brand image on Ford. Public relations can
be done by using the help of employees, stakeholders, customers and general public through
blogs, reviews, influencing media ownerships and by propagating a “big idea”

Sales Promotion Strategy

Digital promotions like online competitions, digital coupons, e-mailing special offers, online
forums and SEO sales promotions can be used in order to promote products digitally. Ford
can categorize the segmented market into different promotion offers like standard offers,
premium offers and so on. This can be done digitally as well through the Ford Motor
Company website.
 Figure 8 : Paid, Owned
and Earned Media

5.2. POE (Paid, Owned and Earned Media)

Paid media is a way to promote the content of a product or service. It assists in driving
customers/ clients to the earned medias and in gaining traffic to owned medias (Harrison).
Using paying advertisement on Face Book, LinkedIn, Instagram Ford Motor Company can
boost their websites and social media sites.

Owned media is any web property that is owned and under control of the organization (Eg:
Face Book, Twitter, LinkedIn). The more web properties that Ford own, helps in enhancing
the brand throughout the digital sphere (Belden, 2014).

According to (Salsberg, 2010), Earned media is where customer seeks about the product
reviews, shares, recommendations and so on. Depending on SEO and brand content it
becomes a strong organic ranking. Earned media assists in determining Ford’s unique and
quality products.
 6. Digital Marketing Plan Implementation

The objectives of this report are to increase brand awareness of Ford’s BEV and to make the
public aware of Ford eco-friendly automobiles. The main objective is to increase Ford sales
over the next 24 months.

Step 01 :

The first step, would be to provide digital clues/ hints on Ford’s Battery Electric vehicles
(BEVs) and eco-friendly automobiles. For this Ford can use their web/ social media
properties as it has already targeted a particular customer markets according to the
segmentations.

 Digital videos
 Advertisements and
 Blogs can be used in providing clues to the targeted market by using main online
platforms like, Face Book, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.

The content of online videos, blogs and ads should definitely include about eco-friendliness,
investments and technologies used in order to depict the quality and uniqueness of Ford’s
products. These advertisements (Pay-Per-clicks, TV ads, Search Engine Marketing, SEO,
Google ads and so on), videos and blogs can
be categorized under paid media.

Figure 10 : Ford's advertisement on eco-friendliness Figure 9 : Ford's advertisement on BEV technology

This process of hinting the customers on eco-friendliness and BEVs can be carried out for 5
months as to make them curious about what these online/ digital advertisements, blogs and
videos are about.
Step 02 :

The second step is to introduce or tell the customers what the above-mentioned advertisement
clues and hints are related to. Through digital advertisements on eco-friendly automobiles
and BEVs of Ford, it is easy to target the customers who are about to purchase a Ford, who
are expecting or planning to own a Ford and the rich society of the market according to
Ford’s geographic, demographic and psychographic segmentations.

Public relations can be used in this step. Ford can implement innovative digital
advertisements and videos by using celebrities. Celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio, Nick
Jonas, George Clooney and Sean Penn are few of famous celebrities those who own a Ford.
These digital advertisements and videos can include about their (celebrity’s) interest on Ford,
uniqueness, safety, quality, performance and eco-friendliness of Ford’s automobiles and

Figure 11 : Paid partnership advertisement with Game of Thrones (GOT)

BEVs.
Figure 12 : Paid partnership advertisement with Dwayne Johnson

Paid partnership advertisements can be aided through stakeholder and supplier sponsorships
and can be advertised on social media channels (Face Book, LinkedIn, Instagram and
Tweeter) and on Ford websites.

In addition to advertising, Ford can use social media campaigns. By using high
creative themed advertising campaigns, the 18 – 25 years old ladies and teenagers and middle
classed families can be targeted. Face Book campaigns, Instagram campaigns and various
other social media campaigns can be used. It’ll assist Ford in delivering the needed message
to their customers and in attracting new customers as well. This process can be carried out for
5 months as to confirm about the targeted market.
 Figure 13 : Ford social media campaigns

Step 03 :

The third step is about promoting Ford’s environmental-friendly automobiles and BEVs by
using
 customer feedbacks
 sharing
 reviews
 blogs
 recommendations.

This assists Ford in attracting the targeted market and in focusing on new customers. This can
be categorized under earned media and it’ll boost visitors to Ford’s owned media channels
like, Ford website, Face Book page, YouTube page, Tweeter, Instagram and so on.

Figure 14 : Customer feedbacks

 By using earned
media (sharing,
reviews, mentions)
Ford can persuade their
focused customers to
purchase their quality
products. Ford can
advertise the customer
reviews,
Figure 15 : Ford's customer reaction recommendations and
positive feedbacks on social media channels (FB, Tweeter) in order to attract a new segment
of customers.

This process can be continued for 6 months.

Step 04 :

In the final and fourth step, Ford can give the opportunity to customers to experience their
services and products in direct marketing and online virtual direct marketing. In face-to-face
marketing, Ford can use their own stores as showrooms and their showrooms by including
free snacks, beverages and high-speed internal facilities to customers.

Here, the Ford customers have the ability to experience virtual showrooms and virtual test
drives. Ford can implement an
application for their customers
on their virtual showrooms.

Figure 16 : Virtual test drives

Letting customers experience in differentiated buying will attract more new customers and by
allowing Ford to carry a new concept like “Drive different” will assist them in allowing
customers to purchase their eco-friendly automobiles and BEVs.

Ford can advertise

these customer
experiences on social
media channels,
websites and e-mail
marketing. By making
clients curious to
experience such
differentiated buying
can attract and
persuade customers to
purchase Ford’s
products.
The rest of the time
period (10 months)
can used to increase
Figure 17 : Virtual showroom sales and attract customers.

By using digital marketing plan Ford mainly has the ability to enhance their sales within 24
months and to make their customers aware about Ford’s BEVs (Battery Electric Vehicles)
and their eco-friendly automobiles.

Budget
Allocation
 7. Conclusion
In conclusion, this Marketing and Digital Future report has stated that, by using Marketing
strategies like SWOT and PEST analysis, STP (Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning) and
Marketing Mix (including digital marketing mix) one can build a successful digital marketing
plan that meets the organizational goal.

Therefore, by using those it was possible to implement a digital marketing plan for Ford
Motor Company, UK that assists them in enhancing their sales within the next 2 years, brand
awareness of Ford’s BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle) and public awareness of Ford’s Eco-
friendly automobiles.

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