Why? Um… Because?
You’d think Ford Motor Company has enough problems these days. On top of falling profits, massive debt and having to sell off marquee brands Jaguar and Land Rover to India’s Tata Motors, Ford has now saddled itself with one humdinger of a crappy advertising slogan: “Why Ford. Why Now.”
I’ve never been a fan of interrogative taglines with the exception of Wendy’s “Where’s the beef?”, which was targeted at their competition. One particularly annoying one was Bud Dry’s paradoxical “Why ask why?” The problem with asking a question is that it invites answers or other questions that may not reflect well on the advertiser. “Why ask why?” Hell, why use your brain at all? The less you do, the more likely you are to buy their lousy beer.
Ford attempts to cut off any further questioning by changing the slogan to a statement: “Why Ford. Why now.” Huh? It’s a semantic bellyflop, neither question nor answer, a confounding non-sequitir. Are those the answers to the questions “Why Ford? Why now?” I’m not sure what you’re trying to tell me.
Hoping to find the answers to these questions—or maybe the questions for the answers—I turned to the Ford website. Ford.com is an unapologetically ugly corporate front page, difficult to navigate and offering few answers. “Today our quality can’t be beat by Toyota or Honda,” is about all we get here. Today? So no excuses for yesterday and no guarantees for tomorrow? Why so timid, Ford?
Clicking the “Why Ford. Why now.” button opens a new window (for no good reason) revealing what might be the most incompetently-executed site belonging to a multibillion-dollar producer of consumer goods. Poorly-optimized images, jagged-edged logos, drop shadows run amok, hideous, disorganized tabbed navigation and some useless Flash. This page would have been an embarrassment 5 years ago. Worst of all—still don’t know “Why Ford. Why now.” but we’re treated to new variations: “Why Lincoln. Why now.” and “Why Mercury. Why now.” I don’t know! Shouldn’t you be telling me that?
Mercifully, Volvo, Ford’s only remaining brand of distinction, is spared. This seems to be the only indication that Ford knows what it’s doing. This is a company that brags it’s making “America’s most innovative full-size sedan” yet doesn’t have the sense not call it the Taurus, a model that’s historically epitomized Ford’s mediocrity.
The kicker is this: Fords actually are better than they used to be. They rank high in customer satisfaction. They’re not nearly as ugly as a few years ago (though are, at best, attractively generic). Their fuel efficiency is… Well, it’s getting better. The lineup is a bit bloated, the pricing structure odd and they have a crossover called the Flex which isn’t a flex fuel vehicle and gets worse MPGs than the full-size Escape SUV, but overall their cars don’t suck.
I can only wonder why Ford is afraid to stand up and say, “Buy our cars! We totally don’t suck anymore and probably didn’t actually ever suck as much as a lot of people thought we sucked! Unlike GM! They still suck!” Sure, that’s a little wordy but they’re not paying me so I’m not writing their ad copy for them.
Instead, we get only empty words: “Why Ford. Why now.” And the closest thing to an answer is a question (of course), posed by Ford pitchman Mike Rowe in one of their TV spots: “Why not?”