Ford Rebranding Campaign “Goes Further” by Targeting Consumers and Employees
A couple of months ago, Ford Motor Company launched its “Go Further” campaign – a clever series of ads that began by omitting the Ford name and well-known blue oval logo (See add below). After a week of anonymous ads, they reinserted their brand markers. Apparently, the idea behind this new campaign was that Ford felt its brand image was still a bit negative, and they wanted to show off their new, sleek designs without generating the current assumptions people come to when the see the Ford logo.
A Media Post article provided the following insights as to how Ford felt about the success of the campaign, citing that, “the new ‘Go Further’ campaign has done remarkably well -- name or no name. The launch ad was the number one viral video for the week of April 30, garnering 3.4 million views (which Ford says equals the average views from this year's Super Bowl campaigns). Also, per Ford, 40% of visitors to the GoFurther.com site clicked through to Ford.com; and 9% of Web traffic came from California, followed by New York. Texas, Florida and Pennsylvania rounded out the lead markets for the ads' ability to generate Web traffic to GoFurther.com. The sentiment was also 95% positive based on Twitter comments, said the automaker.” 
But, attracting consumers wasn’t all Ford was after with the new brand messaging. According to a recent Forbes article, “The company is exhorting its 166,000 worldwide employees to ‘Go Further,’ too, because executives believe that making Ford’s ‘internal brand’ consistent with its new external messaging can create profound synergies that benefit the company in significant ways.”
Although external marketing typically takes precedence over internal marketing, I think they are equally important. Making sure employees know the mission and vision of the company is essential, especially for a company whose employees are face to face with consumers each and every day, selling the product. If Ford’s own employees don’t believe the brand encompasses “people serving people, ingenuity and the attainable” in “character, appeal and value,” as projected by the new “Go Further” campaign, it is hard to expect consumers to feel the same way. Internal marketing is something each and every company needs to take into account while executing rebranding or marketing initiatives. It’s not just the folks in the communications department that need to be on board – it’s the entire company.