Task: how to get inside tour opponents skull...
Strategy: breath, eat, smoke, listen, and otherwise live the life of your target customer demographic.
Tactic: war rooms, competitive studies (drives, dissassembly), analysis of publicly available information.
The topic today is the next F-150 - and the next Super Duty. What is Ford doing to get the next models of this family of truck right?
First the bad news: http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2006/05/25/ford_to_delay_launch_of_redesigned_pickup_truck/?rss_id=Boston.com+%2F+Massachusetts+Business+-+Business+News+-+Financial+News - there will be a delay of the updated Super Duty, but apparently for all the right reasons. You've probably seen the spy pictures - obscenely big grill and new dashboard - but you may not be aware of the issues surrounding the 6 liter diesel engine.
The Detroit News broke a story today about one of Fords war rooms, and the rules that go with it: http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060525/AUTO01/605250334/1148
Business Week Online thinks the war room concept is silly: http://www.businessweek.com/autos/autobeat/archives/2006/05/fords_war_room.html?campaign_id=rss_blog_blogspotting .
I've got mixed feelings - I fully support the war room concept. I've been a product planner and strategist for a long time and this is part of the methodology. We could spend pages of postijng talking about those methods, and I'd be happy to at some other point in time.
What I'm concerned with today is seemingly how literally Ford takes some of the themes it comes up with: Toby Keith & rednecks for trucks, straight-liners for Mustangs, etc. There are a lot of us who are not true truckers, but who may need one for - well - trucking(!). There is 99.9% of the Mustang market who are not straight-liners and never would be (like me).
The extreme end of this extra sharply-focused thinking results in concept trucks like the horrible F-250 Super Chief concept and certain elements that then make it thru the concept stage into production. Examples there include the current Ford trend for chrome bars in place of grills (Fusion, future Five Hundred, etc) and giant chrome grills that have ruined the esthetics of the formerly-popular Explorer. As another example of the translation from concept to reality, check out the horrible 2007 Expedition - it's almost unbelievable.
I can only hope the diesel-locomotive type front end of the F-250 concept will be seriously toned down by production, much as was the "Mightly F-350 Tonka" was before it became the current F-250.
