Fiesta commercial finds narrow target

Are blokes missing out? Ford's Fiesta, the blue oval brand's entry in the VFACTS light-car segment, is a vehicle designed to appeal as broadly as possible. But the homegrown TV commercial for the car is plainly aimed at young women almost exclusively.

It's undeniably a clever piece of film, wrapping the company's corporate message in a package of light, movement and sound, but it zooms in on a narrow field of buyers -- young women specifically.

David Katich, Ford's General Marketing Manager, is very pleased with the commercial and feels it hits exactly the right chord, but admits the 30-second commercial places the Fiesta very much on the female side of the sexual divide. He did point out though, that two 15-second commercials (for the diesel Fiesta and the sedan variants) redress some of the imbalance, so there's less chance of prospective male buyers feeling slighted.

"That's always something we're really cognisant of," he told the Carsales Network. "If you look at the Fiesta ad there are actually three executions. There's a 30-second execution, there's a 15-second sedan execution and there's a 15-second diesel execution.

"When you look at the sedan execution you'll see that there are some guys who get out of their Fiesta sedan and they get their guitars -- to demonstrate the space of the vehicle. So that's to demonstrate that the car is not just a female car, it can be a male car [also].

"The diesel execution... is about how you can go over a thousand kilometres on a tank of fuel. In that commercial it's a young guy who's late 20s -- and he can go surfing... rock climbing... all over the place.

It's possibly the music played over the visuals in the new Fiesta commercial that attracts the most attention. Katich explained that the music for the ad has generated a strong response among the TV viewing public and many have contacted Ford to find out more about the song.

"Choosing music is always a very subjective thing, but come back to the target customer... do you think this target customer wants to hear jazz, or opera -- or something young and funky?" he asked rhetorically.

Asked whether the song ('Bridges' by Fallulah) was more befitting Ford's target buyer -- a hypothetical 28-year old named Jess -- than another song that was more widely known, Katich answered that in the case of Top 40 songs (by Lady Gaga or Beyonce, for instance), cost then became a consideration.

"We task our agency to find something that's in that genre -- that's relevant to 'Jess', not offending the masses of course," he said.

"The other factor is cost... we obviously balance cost and the music, but having said that, the track we chose was not a Top 40 hit when we chose it, but we just loved the track.

"It really resonated; we thought it had a strong resonance with the target customer. We do our own testing... because we have lots of people at Ford in the same age bracket and lots of people at the agency who are in that age bracket -- and we asked for opinions there. We got an amazing response on that piece of music when we got a few people in for some research.

"Choosing music is always a very subjective thing, but come back to the target customer... do you think this target customer wants to hear jazz, or opera -- or something young and funky?" he asked rhetorically.

Katich subsequently remarked that Fiesta's sales success since the launch of the WS model in 2008 has been due to increased demand from female buyers, yet there's more still to be done attracting female buyers to the car.

"Our challenge for our brand is to build more female [buyers]. Our brand is quite strong in the male demographic -- and we want to hold the male demographic, but we also want to grow the female demographic. So again, you pick your target based on your brand opportunity."

Does that mean that Ford is overcoming a 'blokey' brand image heritage -- something that harked back to the days of the BF Falcon Ute?

"We're really, really proud of our core brand values, strengths," Katich answered. "Falcon is synonymous for some tremendous attributes -- but it's more about broadening your demographic and building your female base.

"I'm not sure I'd say that we're overcoming something [from] a few years ago; it's just that we have a brand that's built, thankfully, [over] a hundred years of history -- and it's about expanding our brand as we bring on all these new products."

The Fiesta commercial contrasts with the latest commercial for the Volkswagen Polo, also a light-segment car. Following the rather confusing 'Follow no one' earlier this year, the new commercial for Polo ('Volkswagen, condensed') is 30 seconds of two geeky chaps listing the Polo's virtues as fast as possible, to the "relaxing" tune of 'If you leave me now' by Chicago.

In the current Polo commercial (and the previous one for that matter), there's no suggestion whatsoever that the car is only suitable for female buyers. It's sad but true, that women will buy a car designed for men, but not necessarily the reverse.

"Any smart marketer looks at what their brand opportunities are -- and tailors their communications to their brand opportunities," said Katich about the VW commercial. "Our brand opportunity is to build our brand demographic, and Fiesta has made an amazing inroad into the female demographic for us. Our female mix has increased substantially with the launch of the new shape [WS Fiesta]."

Based on the commercial, Katich suspects that the Polo, which competes in the same market segment as the Fiesta, may suffer from the reverse problem -- not enough male buyers.

"I'm only speculating, but I'm sure VW have got some great marketing people, who would have a look at who they want to cast -- and then cast appropriately."

The Fiesta and Polo ads can be viewed on YouTube.
Ford Fiesta: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j92W3XVsWMw
Volkswagen Polo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVv2nsvTFHU

And keep an eye out for our first local drive of the upgraded WT Fiesta.

The anatomy of a television commercial

David Katich explained to the Carsales Network how Ford and its advertising agency arrived at the new commercial for the upgraded Fiesta. He began with the fact that the development of the ad takes place in two phases. The car company draws up a strategy, which provides the logical basis for the second phase, the execution.

"The strategy behind the ad... [is to] build consumers' perceptions of our technology capabilities... and so every chance we get we align our communications under that brand pillar," said Katich.

"When we came to launching Fiesta, promoting its smarts -- iPod connectivity, Bluetooth/voice control connectivity -- is really important for us as our brand, but really important [too] for the target consumer.

"What we do is we brief the agency and we say: 'right, here's the target consumer: her name's Jess, she's 28, single, leads a very active social life and a highly connected life'... so Facebook, Twitter, all those sorts of things.

"Technology is really important to her because of that -- and we want something that promotes what we call the 'live bold, live sexy' attributes of Fiesta, with its technology attributes.

"So that's our brief to the agency and then they go through a variety of ideas -- and then we select what we like and you get what you get on TV.

"That's probably an incredible oversimplification of the process that takes about five or six months in the planning, but that's how we go."

The advertising agency will develop different executions for the one strategy, said Katich.

"We always ask for several options... they're all the same strategy, so they all reflect the target customer that we're talking about... but they might be executed differently."

Once the chosen execution reaches air, it is broadcast in a way to capture the viewer's attention by any means possible. If you're out putting the kettle on during the 30-second execution you may still be caught out by the 15-second execution at the end of the ad break -- and if you miss both, there's always the next ad break.

"Wherever possible the first ad in the break is the 30-second [execution] and the last ad in the break is the 15-second [execution], so we provide a balance there and it provides some continuity, because the music's the same. Music's very, very powerful in advertising..." said Katich.

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